Problems with IDLE in Windows 8.1 and installer x86 Version 3.10.8

[Thomas Passin]

On 11/9/2022 7:02 PM, darkstone at o2online.de wrote:
> Is there no one who can help?

Is there a reason why you tried to install a 32-bit version?  Most 
personal computers are 64-bit ones these days. Also, I don't remember if 
you are running Windows or not.

One problem for getting help from the list is that there have not been 
many details given. "Doesn't start" is not helpful.  Are there error 
messages displayed on the terminal?  How did you try to start it?  Does 
Python run at all?

A Python installation normally includes a batch file that launches idle. 
  This batch file may not be on your path for one reason or another.  If 
so, it would not run when you type "idle" at a command line.

So the first thing to do is to figure out if you have either the Python 
program idle.py or idle.pyw, or the batch file idle.bat (for Windows) 
On Linux Mint, when I typed "idle" at a terminal, I got this message:

"Command 'idle' not found, but can be installed with:

sudo apt install idle"

So that's how you would get it with that flavor of Linux.

I'm going to walk through what I would probably do if I had the same 
problem on Windows (I'm going to assume that you are running Windows). 
It's a little long to write out, but not really that hard.  Basically, 
there are only a few steps:

1. Find your Python installation;
2. Look in the installation location to see if the idle program is there;
3.  If it is, try to run it and note any error messages.

First you need to find out where your Python installation is located on 
your system disk. If you don't know, one way to find out is to run the 
following command in a console window:

where /R %USERPROFILE% python.exe

You may be surprised that there more several ones that you didn't 
expect, such as (on my computer):

C:\Users\tom\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_8wekyb3d8bbwe\python.exe

It seems that Windows has its own Python installation; that's not the 
one you want.  You are looking for one that looks like this (with your 
own user name, of course, instead of mine):

C:\Users\tom\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python310\python.exe

Appdata\Local\Programs is where Python3 usually gets installed.  Now we 
know that I have Python 3.10 at 
C:\Users\tom\AppData\Local\Programs\Python.  You may be using a 
different version of Python; if so, just use that version instead.

Idle is normally installed in the directory tree under python.  Let's 
call the top of that tree %PYTH0N%.  On my system, as we see above, that 
is C:\Users\tom\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python310.  Idle should be at

%PYTHON%\Lib\idlelib

Open Windows explorer, and navigate to that directory. If you have that 
directory, then you should be able to run idle.  If it doesn't exist, 
That's a problem and needs to be fixed, probably by a fresh install of 
Python.  If it does, you will see the batch file idle.bat.  Double-click 
it, and idle should run.  If it does not, see below.

That's not a convenient way to run idle time after time.  Either you 
need to get idle on your path, or perhaps it will be available using the 
windows Start menu.  Check that out by tapping the Windows key, then 
typing "idle" (without the quotes).  It may be there.  But look closely, 
for it may be the idle associated with a different version of Python 
than the one you want to use.  For example, on my system I have Idle in 
the Start Menu, but only for Python 3.7 and not Python 3.10 which is the 
most recent version I have.

If you double-clicked on the idle batch file but it failed to run, then 
you need to get any error messages.  You need to run it from a console 
so you can see any output.  Open a console. you want to run idle using 
python and not pythonw (because pythonw will not open a window).  So in 
the console, type "python " (without quotes but with the space), then 
the path to the file.

The path to the file is a lot to type, and it's easier to just drag the 
icon for the file (remember, it's idle.py) into the console window. 
Press the <ENTER> key and idle should run.  If it doesn't, note any 
error messages.  Then come back here and tell us what they were.

It's possible that the "where" program didn't find your python 
installation.  That would be because it's installed somewhere outside of 
your user tree, like Program Files.  You can look again in the entire 
disk (assuming it's on the c: drive, which is almost certainly so):

where /R c:\% python.exe

> Von: darkstone at o2online.de
> Gesendet: ‎Freitag‎, ‎4‎. ‎November‎ ‎2022 ‎15‎:‎10
> An: Eryk Sun
> Cc: python-list at python.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, there is always the message “modified successfull”, “installed sucessfully”, but IDLE does’t start. I tried it with the newer Version, too. Ist 3.11.0 for 32 bit, but it also doesn’t work. Do you have other suggetions, that it works?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Von: Eryk Sun
> Gesendet: ‎Donnerstag‎, ‎3‎. ‎November‎ ‎2022 ‎22‎:‎50
> An: darkstone at o2online.de
> Cc: python-list at python.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/3/22, darkstone at o2online.de <darkstone at o2online.de> wrote:
>> Is there a reason, why it is not installed? Its the same check mark in the
>> installer like IDLE…
> 
> Did you try what I suggested? Modify the installation to remove the
> tkinter/IDLE component. Then modify it again to select the component
> to be reinstalled. Also, try to repair the installation. This may
> reset any DLLs or extension modules that were missing or that were the
> wrong version.
> 
> Ignore the suggestion from Nithish to install tkinter via pip. tkinter
> is part of the standard library and cannot be installed via pip. There
> is no tkinter package on the Python package index (pypi.org).