IDLE won't run

[Scott David Daniels]

Rob wrote:
> I have Python 2.4.3 installed on Windows XP on both a real computer and a 
> virtual machine under VMware. Just recently, IDLE stopped working. I would 
> select IDLE from the start menu or right click on a .PY file and open it in 
> IDLE, but nothing happens. I just uninstalled Python on the virtual machine 
> and installed 2.5 in the hope that that would fix the problem, but it 
> didn't. It, too, would do nothing when I tried to run IDLE. In both cases, 
> the Python command line window will come up, but that's not what I want to 
> use.
> 
> Does anyone know of a way to fix this problem? Is there a new Windows 
> update that is now interfering with IDLE? Would Norton Antivirus be 
> interfering with it somehow? (It's running in both environments.)
Likely something turned on firewall behavior.
You can check out this theory:

     On your background, right-click
       and "New Shortcut" then browse to "C:\Python25\pythonw.exe"
                       (or wherever your Python is).
     When that shortcut has been made, right-click it, and change
     The "target" from:
          "C:\Python25\pythonw.exe"
     to:
          "C:\Python25\pythonw.exe -m idlelib.idle -n"

If this shortcut works to give you Idle, the problem is in creating
a separate process linked via a socket to "localhost" port 8833.

--Scott David Daniels
scott.daniels at acm.org