Idle won't start

[David MacQuigg]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 22:39:50 -0700, David MacQuigg <shuvit at 127.0.0.1>
wrote:

>On 14 Dec 2003 10:50:29 -0800, kmneilso at yahoo.com (Kerry Neilson)
>wrote:
>
>>For the past couple of months, Idle won't start when I invoke it.  I
>>am at a complete loss for why this is.  When this happens, they python
>>command line still starts, and python works fine otherwise.
>>Most interesting to me is that a reboot won't fix the problem.  But if
>>I just try it again sometime later it will work.  Anyone have any
>>ideas?  I'm running python 2.3 on windows 2000 professional.
>
>This might be a different problem if your problem is truly
>intermittent, but I am finding that IDLE has conflicts with other
>installed programs.  I have been running Python 2.3 under Windows
>XP-Home with no problem for the last few months.  Yesterday I
>installed Ruby 1.8.1-11 and now IDLE won't start.  No response to
>clicking the icon, selecting the menu item,  Nada.  Removing Ruby
>restores IDLE.
>
>With Ruby installed, when I run IDLE from a command line
>C:\Python23\Lib\idlelib>idle.py
>I get a message:
>"""
>_tkinter.TclError: Cant find a usable init.tcl in the following
>directories:  <c:\ruby\tcl\lib\tcl8.3> <c:\ruby\tcl\lib\tcl8.3>
>c:/ruby/tcl/lib/tcl8.4  C:/Python23/lib/tcl8.4  C:/lib/tcl8.4
>C:/library
>This probably means that Tcl wasn't installed properly.
>"""
>I have no idea why IDLE is looking for library routines in the Ruby
>subdirectories, or why all the strange variations in the search path
>above, but it is clear that Ruby and IDLE cannot co-exist on one
>computer.
>
>Note:  Re-installing Python23 after Ruby is installed doesn't help.
>You have to remove Ruby completely.
>
>-- Dave

More problems:
IDLE will start only if I never log off !!
If I log off and back on, IDLE fails to start, and I get the same
message as above.
Right after a re-install of Python 2.3.3, I can run IDLE, repeatedly,
with no problems, from my Admin account.  
I'll try a complete uninstall of Python-2.3.3  ...
OK, I uninstalled everything except two DLL's in C:\WINDOWS\system32
The re-install looks normal.  IDLE runs OK, but when I log on again,
it fails !!!  Same message as above.

This is getting scary.  I want my computer back !!.  I'll try a
complete system restore.

That works.  Python is happy.  Sigh !!!

-- Dave