diff --git a/Lib/distutils/_msvccompiler.py b/Lib/distutils/_msvccompiler.py
--- a/Lib/distutils/_msvccompiler.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/_msvccompiler.py
@@ -90,6 +90,7 @@ def _get_vc_env(plat_spec):
             shell=True,
             stderr=subprocess.STDOUT,
             universal_newlines=True,
+            errors="replace",
         )
     except subprocess.CalledProcessError as exc:
         log.error(exc.output)
diff --git a/Lib/subprocess.py b/Lib/subprocess.py
--- a/Lib/subprocess.py
+++ b/Lib/subprocess.py
@@ -30,7 +30,8 @@ class Popen(args, bufsize=-1, executable=None,
             preexec_fn=None, close_fds=True, shell=False,
             cwd=None, env=None, universal_newlines=False,
             startupinfo=None, creationflags=0,
-            restore_signals=True, start_new_session=False, pass_fds=()):
+            restore_signals=True, start_new_session=False,
+            pass_fds=(), errors=None):
 
 
 Arguments are:
@@ -73,6 +74,10 @@ parent.  Additionally, stderr can be STDOUT, which indicates that the
 stderr data from the applications should be captured into the same
 file handle as for stdout.
 
+errors will be passed to the underlying file descriptors for all of
+stdin, stdout and stderr. By default, it is None, which is the same as
+'strict'.
+
 On POSIX, if preexec_fn is set to a callable object, this object will be
 called in the child process just before the child is executed.  The use
 of preexec_fn is not thread safe, using it in the presence of threads
@@ -848,7 +853,7 @@ class Popen(object):
                  shell=False, cwd=None, env=None, universal_newlines=False,
                  startupinfo=None, creationflags=0,
                  restore_signals=True, start_new_session=False,
-                 pass_fds=()):
+                 pass_fds=(), errors=None):
         """Create new Popen instance."""
         _cleanup()
         # Held while anything is calling waitpid before returncode has been
@@ -934,16 +939,16 @@ class Popen(object):
                 errread = msvcrt.open_osfhandle(errread.Detach(), 0)
 
         if p2cwrite != -1:
-            self.stdin = io.open(p2cwrite, 'wb', bufsize)
+            self.stdin = io.open(p2cwrite, 'wb', bufsize, errors=errors)
             if universal_newlines:
                 self.stdin = io.TextIOWrapper(self.stdin, write_through=True,
                                               line_buffering=(bufsize == 1))
         if c2pread != -1:
-            self.stdout = io.open(c2pread, 'rb', bufsize)
+            self.stdout = io.open(c2pread, 'rb', bufsize, errors=errors)
             if universal_newlines:
                 self.stdout = io.TextIOWrapper(self.stdout)
         if errread != -1:
-            self.stderr = io.open(errread, 'rb', bufsize)
+            self.stderr = io.open(errread, 'rb', bufsize, errors=errors)
             if universal_newlines:
                 self.stderr = io.TextIOWrapper(self.stderr)