[Paul Gimpelj]
I was wondering how to have multiple instances of python running on XP.
Multiple instances of Python are routinely used on all flavors of Windows without problems (at the moment, I have 4 on my XP box, and often run 3 simultaneously).
I have ZOPE and TSW installed, but ZOPE's python is grabbing paths from TSW's python.
Then you need to ask on Zope and TSW (unsure what that is) lists about why those applications are fighting with each other. Asking here is like asking on a bash developer's list because you run two apps from the shell that insist on having different PATHs. There's nothing bash can do about that -- and the question is better addressed to a bash user's list even if you think there should be.
specifically I
changed to dir "...\Zope-2.7.2-0\bin" and in cmd window ran python
did help() , sys and executable= r'...\Zope-2.7.2-0\bin\python.exe' but exec_prefix = r'...\TSW\Apache2\python' path_importer_cache = ....\TSW|Apache2\python...
Well, Python isn't forcing the use of TSW, and Zope certainly isn't, so if I were you I'd ask the TSW developers what they're up to. I have no idea how they manage to change Zope's Python's idea of what exec_prefix should be. Zope sets no environment variables or registry entries related to Python, and Zope runs happily without interfering with a user-installed Python, so TSW is your hangup.