python.exe vs pythonw.exe difference?

[Emile van Sebille]

Dear group,

I've possibly narrowed a problem I'm having running zope as a service
on winxp pro sp 1 in that when started from a command line as:

c:\zope\v27\lib\python\python.exe
c:\zope\v27\lib\python\zope\startup\run.py -C
c:\zope\v27\instance\etc\zope.conf

it starts up just fine (although now running from the console).

But when I start it with:

c:\zope\v27\lib\python\pythonw.exe
c:\zope\v27\lib\python\zope\startup\run.py -C
c:\zope\v27\instance\etc\zope.conf

it dies after about 30 seconds.

It wouldn't surprise me that I'm doing something it doesn't like (I'm
spawning additional processes from within a product but it worked fine
with 2.5), but I'm somewhat at a loss as to debugging it in that when
run as a console app it works fine, but when run windowless it
doesn't.

Do I have to write out check points to a file? or is there some way to
use Mark Hammonds process debugging tools?  Or is this a bug, known or
otherwise?

Pointers and hints welcome.

Emile van Sebille
emile at fenx dot com
emile at fenx.com