[James C. Ahlstrom]
The zip archive name is always inserted as the second item in sys.path. The first always seems to be ''.
Running p.py: import sys print `sys.path[0]` on Windows gives: C:\Code\python\PCbuild>python p.py '' C:\Code\python\PCbuild>cd .. C:\Code\python>pcbuild\python pcbuild\p.py 'pcbuild' C:\Code\python>pcbuild\python \code\python\pcbuild\p.py '\\code\\python\\pcbuild' C:\Code\python>cd pcbuild C:\Code\python\PCbuild>python .\p.py '.' C:\Code\python\PCbuild>move p.py ..\lib C:\CODE\PYTHON\PCBUILD\p.py => C:\CODE\PYTHON\lib\p.py [ok] C:\Code\python\PCbuild>python ..\lib\p.py '..\\lib' C:\Code\python\PCbuild> That is, the first entry is the path (relative or absolute!) to the directory in which the script being executed lives.