HI,
   I am not unable to start Python IDLE from Start menu.. THe hour glass appears once i clikc the icon and vanishes quickly. Can anyone tell me how to fix this problem. Thanks.

Do you have any sort of firewall/anti-virus software installed?  That can conflict with IDLE because it tries to open a port.  You can try going to the software and allowing IDLE to access this port.  You can also try to open a terminal window and start IDLE manually and see if that works or if that produces an error message.

Hi..i checked my firewall also..tried opening it by disabling the firewall..Doesnt seem to help.How to let IDLE access thge port.Can someone give me more details. Terminal window in the sense starting IDLE from command ? I tried that too but didnt seem to help..Pls help. THanks.

It looks like you can only change the port by changing code.  (idlelib\PyShell.py)  The port it uses is 8833.

Try starting IDLE without a subprocess (and port IIRC):

  python.exe idle.py -n

(ie, add -n option to the command line.

You could probably find the answer by googling for something like "python idle startup port".

BTW, for questions like these, it's better to ask on the Usenet group comp.lang.python.  You can also reach it via python-list@python.org.  Also #python on IRC (freenode.net) are good ways of asking for help for questions like these that aren't really bugs.