diff --git a/lib/dependencies/sub-process.ts b/lib/dependencies/sub-process.ts
index 0e12e75..29c3b6c 100644
--- a/lib/dependencies/sub-process.ts
+++ b/lib/dependencies/sub-process.ts
@@ -1,16 +1,41 @@
 import { spawn, SpawnOptions, spawnSync } from 'child_process';
-import { quoteAll } from 'shescape/stateless';
+import { escapeAll, quoteAll } from 'shescape/stateless';
+import * as os from 'node:os';
 
 interface ProcessOptions {
   cwd?: string;
   env?: { [name: string]: string };
 }
 
-function makeSpawnOptions(options?: ProcessOptions) {
+function processArguments(
+  args: string[],
+  spawnOptions: SpawnOptions
+): string[] {
+  if (!args) {
+    return args;
+  }
+
+  // Best practices, also security-wise, is to not invoke processes in a shell, but as a stand-alone command.
+  // However, on Windows, we need to invoke the command in a shell, due to internal NodeJS problems with this approach
+  // see: https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v24.x/api/child_process.html#spawning-bat-and-cmd-files-on-windows
+  const isWinLocal = /^win/.test(os.platform());
+  if (isWinLocal) {
+    spawnOptions.shell = true;
+    // Further, we distinguish between quoting and escaping arguments since quoteAll does not support quoting without
+    // supplying a shell, but escapeAll does.
+    // See this (very long) discussion for more details: https://github.com/ericcornelissen/shescape/issues/2009
+    return quoteAll(args, { ...spawnOptions, flagProtection: false });
+  } else {
+    return escapeAll(args, { ...spawnOptions, flagProtection: false });
+  }
+}
+
+function makeSpawnOptions(options?: ProcessOptions): SpawnOptions {
   const spawnOptions: SpawnOptions = {
-    shell: true,
+    shell: false,
     env: { ...process.env },
   };
+
   if (options && options.cwd) {
     spawnOptions.cwd = options.cwd;
   }
@@ -19,7 +44,7 @@ function makeSpawnOptions(options?: ProcessOptions) {
   }
 
   // Before spawning an external process, we look if we need to restore the system proxy configuration,
-  // which overides the cli internal proxy configuration.
+  // which overrides the cli internal proxy configuration.
   if (process.env.SNYK_SYSTEM_HTTP_PROXY !== undefined) {
     spawnOptions.env.HTTP_PROXY = process.env.SNYK_SYSTEM_HTTP_PROXY;
   }
@@ -39,19 +64,26 @@ export function execute(
   options?: ProcessOptions
 ): Promise<string> {
   const spawnOptions = makeSpawnOptions(options);
-  args = quoteAll(args, { flagProtection: false });
+  const processedArgs = processArguments(args, spawnOptions);
+
   return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
     let stdout = '';
     let stderr = '';
 
-    const proc = spawn(command, args, spawnOptions);
+    const proc = spawn(command, processedArgs, spawnOptions);
     proc.stdout.on('data', (data) => {
       stdout = stdout + data;
     });
+
     proc.stderr.on('data', (data) => {
       stderr = stderr + data;
     });
 
+    proc.on('error', (err) => {
+      stderr = err.message;
+      return reject({ stdout, stderr });
+    });
+
     proc.on('close', (code) => {
       if (code !== 0) {
         return reject(stdout || stderr);
@@ -67,7 +99,7 @@ export function executeSync(
   options?: ProcessOptions
 ) {
   const spawnOptions = makeSpawnOptions(options);
-  args = quoteAll(args, { flagProtection: false });
+  const processedArgs = processArguments(args, spawnOptions);
 
-  return spawnSync(command, args, spawnOptions);
+  return spawnSync(command, processedArgs, spawnOptions);
 }
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 6f5f752..d8924db 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
   "dependencies": {
     "@snyk/cli-interface": "^2.11.2",
     "@snyk/dep-graph": "^1.28.1",
-    "shescape": "2.1.4",
+    "shescape": "2.1.6",
     "snyk-poetry-lockfile-parser": "^1.9.0",
     "tmp": "0.2.3"
   },
diff --git a/test/system/inspect.spec.ts b/test/system/inspect.spec.ts
index 48f6838..ca4543f 100644
--- a/test/system/inspect.spec.ts
+++ b/test/system/inspect.spec.ts
@@ -150,7 +150,6 @@ describe('inspect', () => {
           {
             pkg: {
               name: 'jaraco.collections',
-              version: '5.1.0',
             },
             directDeps: ['irc'],
           },
@@ -532,7 +531,6 @@ describe('inspect', () => {
           {
             pkg: {
               name: 'jaraco.collections',
-              version: '5.1.0',
             },
             directDeps: ['irc'],
           },
diff --git a/test/test-utils.ts b/test/test-utils.ts
index c013e38..49082ec 100644
--- a/test/test-utils.ts
+++ b/test/test-utils.ts
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@ function createVenv(venvDir: string) {
     revert = deactivateVirtualenv();
   }
   try {
-    let proc = subProcess.executeSync('python3 -m venv', [venvDir]);
+    let proc = subProcess.executeSync('python3', ['-m', 'venv', venvDir]);
     if (proc.status !== 0) {
       console.error(proc.stdout.toString() + '\n' + proc.stderr.toString());
       throw new Error('Failed to create virtualenv in ' + venvDir);