diff --git a/tests/test_gui_context_presets.py b/tests/test_gui_context_presets.py
index f8884de1..d1d0f50a 100644
--- a/tests/test_gui_context_presets.py
+++ b/tests/test_gui_context_presets.py
@@ -45,11 +45,14 @@ def test_gui_context_preset_save_load(live_gui) -> None:
  client.push_event("custom_callback", {"callback": "load_context_preset", "args": [preset_name]})
  time.sleep(1.0)
 
- # DEBUG: Print the background process log
+ # DEBUG: Print the background process log (binary mode because the
+ # GUI process writes Windows console output that isn't valid UTF-8)
  log_path = os.path.join("logs", "sloppy_py_test.log")
  if os.path.exists(log_path):
-  with open(log_path, "r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
-   print(f"BACKGROUND LOG:\n{f.read()}")
+  with open(log_path, "rb") as f:
+   raw = f.read()
+   text = raw.decode("utf-8", errors="replace")
+   print(f"BACKGROUND LOG:\n{text}")
 
  context = client.get_context_state()
  loaded_files = [f["path"] if isinstance(f, dict) else str(f) for f in context.get("files", [])]