<p>I would like to drag and drop my data file onto a Python script and have it process the file and generate output. The Python script accepts the name of the data file as a command-line parameter, but Windows Explorer doesn't allow the script to be a drop target.</p>

<p>Is there some kind of configuration that needs to be done somewhere for this work?</p>

Sure. From a
mindless technology article called "Make Python Scripts Droppable in Windows"
, you can add a drop handler by adding a registry key:
Here’s a registry import file that you can use to do this. Copy the
  following into a .reg file and run it
  (Make sure that your .py extensions
  are mapped to Python.File).
```
```
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Python.File\shellex\DropHandler]
@="{60254CA5-953B-11CF-8C96-00AA00B8708C}"
```
```
This makes Python scripts use the WSH drop handler, which is compatible with long filenames. To use the short filename handler, replace the GUID with
```
86C86720-42A0-1069-A2E8-08002B30309D
```
.
A comment in that post indicates that one can enable dropping on "no console Python files (
```
.pyw
```
)" or "compiled Python files (
```
.pyc
```
)" by using the
```
Python.NoConFile
```
and
```
Python.CompiledFile
```
classes.