def escape_argument(arg, escape=True):
    '''
    Escape the argument for the cmd.exe shell.
    See http://blogs.msdn.com/b/twistylittlepassagesallalike/archive/2011/04/23/everyone-quotes-arguments-the-wrong-way.aspx

    First we escape the quote chars to produce a argument suitable for
    CommandLineToArgvW. We don't need to do this for simple arguments.

    Args:
        arg (str): a single command line argument to escape for the cmd.exe shell

    Kwargs:
        escape (bool): True will call the escape_for_cmd_exe() function
                       which escapes the characters '()%!^"<>&|'. False
                       will not call the function and only quotes the cmd

    Returns:
        str: an escaped string suitable to be passed as a program argument to the cmd.exe shell
    '''
    if not arg or re.search(r'(["\s])', arg):
        arg = '"' + arg.replace('"', r'\"') + '"'

    if not escape:
        return arg
    return escape_for_cmd_exe(arg)