Windows compatibility failures in local test suite

Prerequisites

• I searched open issues and discussions and did not find an existing report of this bug.
• This is not a security vulnerability. (Vulnerabilities go to GitHub Security Advisories — see SECURITY.md.)
• I am running the latest code from the dev branch (the default branch you get on clone, where fixes land first) and the bug still reproduces there. Please git pull the latest dev before filing.

Install Method

Manual Python install (pip / venv)

Operating System

Windows

Steps to Reproduce

1. Clone the repository on a Windows host.
2. Set up the virtual environment (venv).
3. Run the tests using pytest: pytest

Expected Behaviour

All unit and integration tests should run and pass successfully on a Windows host.

Actual Behaviour

Multiple tests crash or fail due to:

• UnicodeDecodeError when reading source files under the Windows default CP1252 encoding.
• Missing USERPROFILE mock in test_builtin_mcp_npx_cache.py causing isolation failure.
• Default Windows WSL bash stub execution and python3 binary naming mismatches in test_cookbook_helpers.py and test_amd_gpu_check_args.py.

Logs / Screenshots

Model / Backend (if relevant)

No response

Are you willing to submit a fix?

Yes — I can open a PR

Additional Information

No response