Yes, this is a python question, and a serious one at that (moving to Win XP)

[Christophe]

Kenneth McDonald a écrit :
> For unfortunate reasons, I'm considering switching back to Win XP  (from 
> OS X) as my "main" system. Windows has so many annoyances that  I can 
> only compare it to driving in the Bay Area at rush hour (OS X  is like 
> driving in Portland at rush hour--not as bad, but getting  there), but 
> there are really only a couple of things that are really,  absolutely 
> preventing me from making the switch. Number one is the  lack of a 
> decent command line and command-line environment, and I'm  wondering 
> (hoping) if perhaps someone has written a "Python shell"-- something 
> that will look like a regular shell, let users type in  commands, maybe 
> have some of the nice features of bash etc. like tab  completion, etc, 
> and will then execute an underlying python script  when the command is 
> entered. I'm not thinking of IDLE, but something  that is really aimed 
> more at being a system terminal, not a Python- specific terminal.
> 
> Yes, I know that Cygwin is out there, but last I looked, they still  
> went through the Win command-line window, which imposes a lot of  
> restrictions.
> 
> More generally, has anyone written any python programs to administer  
> various Win settings for which one must otherwise delve deep into  mazes 
> of twisty little dialogs, all alike? Or to help out with other  
> annoyances? I know there are a lot of general utilities, but if  they're 
> in Python, I can also use them as a starting base for my own  needs.
> 
> Finally, a significant incentive in doing this is that I could avoid  a 
> lot of installation hassle, since virtually everything has at least  a 
> decent installation package for Win. (I'd hoped this would happen  for 
> OS X, but it never has). Can anyone think of important python- related 
> packages (release level, not cutting edge alphas) for which  this might 
> not be the case?
> 
> Many thanks,
> Ken

Last time I checked, you could install a native win32gui version of rxvt 
with cygwin. This would give you a better terminal window than that 
crappy thing you get in XP.