If commands similar to this (including all quotation 
marks) '"C:\\Program Files\\test.bat" blah "C:\\Data Files\\test2.txt"' 
are executed using popen, then the following is returned from 
stderr "'C:\\Program' is not recognized as an internal or external 
command,\noperable program or batch file.\n". No use of quotation has 
been able to fix this. As soon as there is more than one pair of 
quotations inside the command string popen will not handle the command 
correctly.

Do you have a code sample that reproduces this issue? Which popen module
and/or function are you using to execute this command?

I have attached some code that demonstrates the bug. You need to run it 
on Windows and you need to place some bat file (it doesn't need to do 
anything just exist) at C:\Program Files\test.bat (or change the 
reference in the code, but it does need to include spacing). The first 
popen call works the second popen call will fail, because there are 2 
pathnames in the code with spaces. I am using the popen4 module in os 
but I also tested popen2 and popen3 and they do the same thing.

The popen*() function don't quote the paths for you. Please use the
subprocess module. It takes care of the quoting on Windows.