I just installed Python 3.3.1, and tried to open IDLE, which failed to come up, giving only the classic pythonw.exe has stopped responding. Will post dumps.

So I tried to open Python33\python.exe and it's trying to load codecs from Python 2.7 which I think has to be the cause of the problem. When it raises CodecRegistryError, the 2.7 syntax is wrong for 3.3 and causes a SyntaxError. Fatal Python error: Py_Initialize: unable to load system file codec File "C:\Python27\Lib\encodings\__init__.py", line 123 raise CodecRegistryError,\ ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Hum, do you have any environment variable that refer to Python27? In a terminal window (cmd.exe), try the following command: set | findstr /i python

It returns this: C:\Users\Acebulf>set | findstr /i python Path=C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\PyQt4;C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporati on\PhysX\Common;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windo ws\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files\Intel\WiFi\bin\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intel\WirelessCommon\;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\1 10\Tools\Binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\;C:\Program Files\In tel\WiFi\bin\;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Intel\WirelessCommon\;C:\Python27\ PYTHONPATH=C:\Python27\Lib;C:\Python27\DLLs;C:\Python27\Lib\lib-tk;

Please remove the PYTHONPATH environment variable. I don't know how it came here, but it's certainly not needed: these directories are computed at runtime when the python27 interpreter starts; it can only do harm when another interpreter is installed.

Patrick, does removing PYTHONPATH from your environment variables fix this problem?

I'm closing this issue due since it's root problem is a misconfigured environment variable.

s/it's/its