Unable to run IDLE from 2.3?

[Alex Martelli]

<posted & mailed>

M Wells wrote:

> I recently downloaded and installed Python 2.3 for Windows (on XP
> professional) and I don't seem to be able to run IDLE from my start
> menu? It seems something happens when I click on it (ie I get an
> hourglass) but no actual application turns up.
> 
> Has anyone else experienced this and can anyone give me some advice on
> how to fix it?

There are two known causes for this bug:

-- you installed Python in a directory with a space in its path

Workaround: uninstall it, install it again in a directory with
no spaces in its path, e.g. its default C:\Python23

-- you are running a "personal firewall" that is set to inhibit
   connections to host 127.0.0.1

Workaround: remove your "personal firewall" or at least reprogram
it so that connections to 127.0.0.1 are allowed; 127.0.0.1 in
TCP/IP means "this very host, me, myself" and therefore there is
no way in which connections to this address can put you at risk.

IDLE 1.0 uses sockets for communication between the 'main' process
and a secondary process that's set up to run code being developed,
and some misprogrammed 'personal firewalls' are known to interfere
with this.  In theory, it is conceivable that a bad installation
of "networking" on some Windows machine might cause the same
effect as a misconfigured 'personal firewall', but so far in each
case I've analyzed it did boil down to 'personal firewalls'.


It's not necessarily the case that your troubles come from either
of these known causes, but please check both of them -- if it's
something else again, we'll need to root around for it.


Alex