What I do and do not know about installing Python on Win 7 with regard to IDLE.

[Alan Meyer]

On 11/21/2011 11:39 AM, W. eWatson wrote:

> My criterion for success is that it puts IDLE as a choice for editor on
> the menu produced with a right-click on a py file. So far no response on
> this has solved the problem.  ...

I don't know what responses you're referring to since this is the first 
posting in the thread.  It's possible what I'm about to say was already 
told to you - in which case I'm wasting my and everyone's time.

However, leaving that aside, I think that this is trivially easy to 
solve.  It has nothing whatever to do with Python or Idle - though it's 
possible that the Python installer could have done something for that it 
didn't - and it's also possible that the Python installer did what you 
told it to do but you told it the wrong thing, or you told Windows to 
change it without realizing that you did.  (I do that all the time.  A 
mouse slip and inadvertent click on the wrong object, a misunderstanding 
of a prompt, or lots of other missteps can change things without your 
having any idea what happened.)

Anyway, if I understand what you're looking for, here's what you need to 
do to fix your problem:

1. Open Windows Explorer.

2. Navigate to a Python file.

3. Right click on the Python file with the mouse.

4. Select "Open With"

5. Select "Choose Default Program"

6. Select, or navigate to and select, the python IDLE interpreter.

7. Check the box that says "Always use the selected program to open this 
kind of file."

8. Click "OK".

The prompts I described above are the ones I saw on my Windows Server 
2008 machine.  Yours may vary slightly, but I think the procedures 
should be the same.

Please let us know if that solves your problem.

     Alan