diff --git a/IPython/utils/_process_win32.py b/IPython/utils/_process_win32.py
index f6a828b..9b1ee5a 100644
--- a/IPython/utils/_process_win32.py
+++ b/IPython/utils/_process_win32.py
@@ -155,7 +155,7 @@ def getoutput(cmd):
 
     if out is None:
         out = ''
-    return out
+    return py3compat.bytes_to_str(out)
 
 try:
     CommandLineToArgvW = ctypes.windll.shell32.CommandLineToArgvW