1) Create a path with unicode characters (cyrillic, for example) under Windows, and a some file (with a some content! For example, "ABCDE"): C:\dev\слово\src\file.py 2) Open console and go to the C:\dev\слово\src\ folder. 3) Launch Geany from command line with the file name as the parameter: C:\your_installation_path\bin\geany.exe file.py 4) Geany opened an empty file instead of the file with the "ABCDE" content. In the log messages the path is "c:\dev\слово\src\file.py" instead of normal "C:\dev\слово\src\file.py"

5) But, if you launch geany with the full path to the file C:\your_installation_path\bin\geany.exe C:\dev\слово\src\file.py all will be ok. We can see the file content: "ABCDE" The log messages show the right file path: "c:\dev\слово\src\file.py"

So, geany can't detect default working dir under Windows. And you can't use geany in your workflow with unicode characters in paths.