> I checked why sys.executable is not normalized in the the "appx build". PC\python_uwp.cpp calls set_process_name() which sets PyConfig.executable and the path is not normalized. If PyConfig.executable is set explicitly, the path is left unchanged: PyConfig has the highest priority.

Ah, that would explain it, certainly. I don't know why the dots are ever added though.

This test also has the weird oddity that it isn't running as an actual app, so a different initialization path is taken. In this case, it should be using the final name as reported by the operating system, so the extra dots are basically unexplainable. I'll try a couple of experiments and see if I can figure it out.

> the UI is kind of "hidden" in GitHub

Yeah, but I look at it periodically (the "Commits" view is a convenient way to see recent CI and buildbot status). It's considerably simpler for me than finding out it's broken in an RC :)