Python subprocess output on windows?

I'm running into some difficulties getting output from a subprocess stdout pipe. I'm launching some third party code via it, in order to extract log output. Up until a recent update of the third party code, everything worked fine. After the update, python has started blocking indefinitely, and not actually showing any output. I can manually launch the third party app fine and see output.

A basic version of the code I'm using:

import subprocess, time
from threading import Thread

def enqueue_output(out):
    print "Hello from enqueue_output"
    for line in iter(out.readline,''):
        line = line.rstrip("\r\n")
        print "Got %s" % line
    out.close()

proc = subprocess.Popen("third_party.exe", stdout=subprocess.PIPE, bufsize=1)
thread = Thread(target=enqueue_output, args=(proc.stdout,))
thread.daemon = True
thread.start()

time.sleep(30)

This works perfectly if I substitute third_party.exe for this script:

import time, sys

while True:
    print "Test"
    sys.stdout.flush()
    time.sleep(1)

So I'm unclear as to magic needs to be done to get this working with the original command.

These are all variants of the subprocess.Popen line I've tried with no success:

proc = subprocess.Popen("third_party.exe", stdout=subprocess.PIPE, bufsize=0)
proc = subprocess.Popen("third_party.exe", stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True)
proc = subprocess.Popen("third_party.exe", stdout=subprocess.PIPE, creationflags=subprocess.CREATE_NEW_CONSOLE)
si = subprocess.STARTUPINFO()
si.dwFlags = subprocess.STARTF_USESTDHANDLES | subprocess.STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW
proc = subprocess.Popen("third_party.exe", stdout=subprocess.PIPE, startupinfo=si)

Edit 1: I can't actually use .communicate() in this case. The app I'm launching remains running for long periods of time (days to weeks). The only way I could actually test .communicate() would be to kill the app shortly aft