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I am using Windows 2000 Professional. I am not using command.com, at 
least not that I know of. I'm running my program from PythonWin or IDLE 
(most often the former).

Can I safely install 2.4b1 and not trash my 2.3 install? If so, I'll give it a go. 
(I know this works on Mac and unix, but have no idea how it works on 
Windows).

Another possibility is to test the results at your end by editing 
subprocess.py to toggle that flag that makes win32api be used instead of 
_subprocess. Then launching any app using an explicit path should show the 
problem (or not), since they are all in C:\\Program Files\...