While analyzing a problem, I had a quick look into z2.py, and frankly, I don't understand the logic behind the so called "required path hackery for the win32 binary distribution". This hack unnecessarily makes the z2.py location dependant. The installer rewrites the z2.py source, inserting the absolute path of the zope home into a variable, from where it is used in getting some python folders in front of the python path. IMHO, this is nonsense. A few lines down in z2.py, the absolute path to the zope home is constructed from sys.arg and os.cwd anyway. Why not use that? I removed the superflous stuff from the hack and moved the remaining lines down a few lines, now it comes right after the definition of 'here' and reads: import sys sys.path.insert(0, '%s/bin/lib' % here) sys.path.insert(1, '%s/bin/lib/plat-win' % here) sys.path.insert(2, '%s/bin/lib/win32' % here) sys.path.insert(3, '%s/bin/lib/win32/lib' % here) Works like a charm, both from a service (on win2000) and standalone. ws