I have installed Python 2.5 on WinXP using
python-25.msi with all features included and all
default direcories , etc. When I tried to use IDLE I
had got the following results:
- shortcut in Start -> ... does not do anything
- no IDLE in Python25\Tools

How can I get IDLE for usage?

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Can you please report the properties of the IDLE shortcut?
(right-button on the start menu item, properties)

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Properties:
   IDLE (Python GUI)
Target         Python 2.5
Start in       C:\Python25
Shortcut key   None
Run            Normal window

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Properties:
   IDLE (Python GUI)
Target         Python 2.5
Start in       C:\Python25
Shortcut key   None
Run            Normal window

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I see. Can you please run

C:\Python25\python.exe C:\Python25\Lib\idlelib\idle.pyw

in a cmd.exe window and report what happens?

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Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and
Settings\Administrator>C:\Python25\python.exe C:\Python25\Lib\i
dlelib\idle.pyw
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python25\Lib\idlelib\idle.pyw", line 21, in <module>
    idlelib.PyShell.main()
  File "C:\Python25\lib\idlelib\PyShell.py", line 1388, in main
    root = Tk(className="Idle")
  File "C:\Python25\lib\lib-tk\Tkinter.py", line 1636, in
__init__
    self.tk = _tkinter.create(screenName, baseName,
className, interactive, want
objects, useTk, sync, use)
_tkinter.TclError: Can't find a usable init.tcl in the
following directories:
    {C:\IBMTOOLS\Python22\tcl\tcl8.4}
{C:\IBMTOOLS\Python22\tcl\tcl8.4} C:/IBMTO
OLS/Python22/tcl/tcl8.4 C:/Python25/lib/tcl8.4 C:/lib/tcl8.4
C:/library



This probably means that Tcl wasn't installed properly.

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Can you please check whether you have TCL_LIBRARY or
TK_LIBRARY set 
in your environment, and, if so, try removing them?

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I have got both.

When i remove c:\Python25\tcl the response is the same as before
If in addition to that I remove c:\Python25\Lib\lib-tk it
tells me that I do not have TCL/TK properly configured or it
is not in the system

I wasn't asking that you remove the files: I asked that you remove (unset) the environment variables.

Thatk you for your suggestion - those variables pointed at the older Python version. After I changed their values to Python 2.5 the magic returns.
I would suggest to add information about TCL_LIBRARY and TK_LIBRARY environment variables into Installation instructions.

Please don't change the variables to point elsewhere: remove them entirely, completely, totally from your system. Otherwise, if you install another tcl-needing application, it will break again.

Closing this as fixed.