diff --git a/misc/make-version.py b/misc/make-version.py
index 466240e0e..a4f681644 100644
--- a/misc/make-version.py
+++ b/misc/make-version.py
@@ -76,6 +76,12 @@ def update():
         print "so I'm leaving version.py alone"
         return 0
 
+    # windows' weird ssh process prepends some 'plink: unknown option "-O"'
+    # junk to the beginning of the otput. To overcome this, manually scan for
+    # the opening <changelog> tag before giving anything to the xml parser.
+
+    output = output[output.find("<changelog>"):]
+
     try:
         doc = xml.dom.minidom.parseString(output)
     except xml.parsers.expat.ExpatError: