Index: distutils/spawn.py
===================================================================
--- distutils/spawn.py	(revision 81963)
+++ distutils/spawn.py	(working copy)
@@ -40,20 +40,30 @@
         raise DistutilsPlatformError, \
               "don't know how to spawn programs on platform '%s'" % os.name
 
+# Derived from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc723564.aspx
+# Also added ", which is special
+_nt_quote_chars = ' "&()<>^|'
+
 def _nt_quote_args(args):
     """Quote command-line arguments for DOS/Windows conventions.
-
-    Just wraps every argument which contains blanks in double quotes, and
-    returns a new argument list.
+    Just wraps every argument which contains special characters in double
+    quotes, and returns a new argument list.
     """
-    # XXX this doesn't seem very robust to me -- but if the Windows guys
-    # say it'll work, I guess I'll have to accept it.  (What if an arg
-    # contains quotes?  What other magic characters, other than spaces,
-    # have to be escaped?  Is there an escaping mechanism other than
-    # quoting?)
     for i, arg in enumerate(args):
-        if ' ' in arg:
+        # if any reserved characters are in an arg, quote it
+        needquote = False
+        for c in arg:
+            if c in _nt_quote_chars:
+                needquote = True
+        if needquote:
+            # also escape (by doubling the character) quotes, and a backslash
+            # followed by a quote
+            arg = arg.replace('\\"', '\\\\"')
+            if arg[-1:] == '\\':
+                arg = arg[:-1] + '\\\\'
+            arg = arg.replace('"', '""')
             args[i] = '"%s"' % arg
+
     return args
 
 def _spawn_nt(cmd, search_path=1, verbose=0, dry_run=0):