I'm using getopt. I doubt getopt recognises \x96 as a command line parameter prefix. I suppose I could iterate over sys.argv doing a replace but that seems messy. I'd rather understand the problem.
That said, and me not understanding code pages that much, I chcp'd the machines it works on both coming back with 850, chcp'd the machine it wasn't working on which also came back with 850, but then again the machine where it wasn't working now works. So now it's an intermittent bug. Great. I'll try messing with code pages later and report back if I get anywhere. I need more coffee before I can do anything remotely clever. Damn you windows and your lack of a need for coffee -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list