Win98 2.0b: crash on Help

[Tim Peters]

[Kirby Urner]
> I'm not posting this as an official bug as it may be just a problem
> with my own system, but thought I'd garner some feedback.
>
> In 2.0b IDLE 0.6 under Win98, when I select Help | Python Documentation,
> I get an amazingly serious crash.  A couple blue screens of death
> followed by a switch into some undefined video mode. Have to reboot.
> This is on an AMD K2 400, 128RAM, Voodoo3 graphics.

If you installed the test suite, go to a DOS box, cd to the main Python
directory, and type

    python lib/test/test_popen2.py

This is what you should see:

C:\Python20>python lib/test/test_popen2.py
Test popen2 module:
testing popen2...
testing popen3...
All OK
Testing os module:
testing popen2...
testing popen3...
All OK

C:\Python20>

Do you see that, or does your machine die?  IDLE's Help -> Python
Documentation uses the popen2 family of functions.  As a note at the bottom
of the download page

    http://www.pythonlabs.com/tech/python2.0/download.html

says:

    Incompatibility warning: Norton Antivirus 2000 can cause blue
    screen crashes on Windows 98 when a function in the os.popen*()
    family is invoked. To prevent this problem, disable Norton Antivirus
    when using Python. (Confirmed on Windows 98 Second Edition with
    Norton Antivirus version 6.10.20. The same Norton Antivirus version
    doesn't have this problem on Windows 2000. Norton Antivirus version
    5 on Windows 98SE doesn't have this problem either.)

So try disabling your antivirus program (if any), and see whether that fixes
it.  If so, and you're not running Norton Antivirus version 6.10.20, or are
but are running Win98 original edition, *tell us* the details so we can
update that info.  Note that Python isn't doing anything "wrong" here, the
bug is in Norton's stuff.

If that does not fix it, try killing other background tasks via the
Ctrl+Alt+Del window one at a time, and let us know how much fun that is
<wink>.

Gotta say:  after 6 years of running anti-virus programs on Windows, they
never once found a virus, but *several* times caused virus-like symptoms
that were a real PITA to track down!  Counterproductive.

> ....
> This feature worked in 1.6b (used to drop us to DOS box in versions
> prior).  Could be there's something about the sequence of my new
> install (add 2.0b, remove 1.6b, reinstall 2.0b) that screwed up
> the registry or something.  So far, 2.0b has been smooth otherwise
> (haven't done a whole lot with it yet).

Probably nothing you did.  Guido changed the implementation of IDLE's Help
here, and *he* was the first person to suffer blue-screen death as a result!
We figured out the immediate cause, but have yet to find a way to worm
around it.