diff --git a/Lib/distutils/log.py b/Lib/distutils/log.py
index b301a8338c20db..3a6602bc8b8ef6 100644
--- a/Lib/distutils/log.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/log.py
@@ -31,7 +31,10 @@ def _log(self, level, msg, args):
                 # emulate backslashreplace error handler
                 encoding = stream.encoding
                 msg = msg.encode(encoding, "backslashreplace").decode(encoding)
-            stream.write('%s\n' % msg)
+            try:
+                stream.write('%s\n' % msg)
+            except UnicodeEncodeError:
+                stream.write('%s\n' % msg.encode('unicode-escape').decode('ascii'))
             stream.flush()
 
     def log(self, level, msg, *args):
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2018-09-07-10-57-00.bpo-34421.AKJISD.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2018-09-07-10-57-00.bpo-34421.AKJISD.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..cc1db086f0c469
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2018-09-07-10-57-00.bpo-34421.AKJISD.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fix distutils logging for non-ASCII strings.  This caused installation issues on Windows.