"Instead of trying to bet what is the correct encoding, it would be simpler (and safer) to read the Unicode version of the tzname array: StandardName and DaylightName of GetTimeZoneInformation()."

GetTimeZoneInformation() formats correctly timezone names, but it reintroduces #10653 issue: time.strftime("%Z") formats the timezone name differently.

See also issue #13029 which is a duplicate of #10653, but contains useful information.

--

Example on Windows 7 with a french setup configured to Tokyo's timezone.

Using GetTimeZoneInformation(), time.tzname is ("Tokyo", "Tokyo (heure d\u2019\xe9t\xe9)"). U+2019 is the "RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK". This character is usually replaced with U+0027 (APOSTROPHE) in ASCII.

time.strftime("%Z") gives "Tokyo (heure d'\x81\x66ete)" (if it is implemented using strftime() or wcsftime()).

--

If I understood correctly, Python 3.3 has two issues on Windows:

 * time.tzname is decoded from the wrong encoding
 * time.strftime("%Z") gives an invalid output

The real blocker issue is a bug in strftime() and wcsftime() in Windows CRT. A solution is to replace "%Z" with the timezone name before calling strftime() or wcsftime(), aka working around the Windows CRT bug.