Message 158288 - Python tracker

I can confirm that setting HOMEPATH to a non-existent directory will prevent IDLE from starting when using idle.bat. If you modify idle.bat such that python.exe is called instead of pythonw.exe, then IDLE starts normally, but with this console message:

  Warning: os.path.expanduser("~") points to
  C:\Users\doesnotexist
  but the path does not exist.

Normally, the message is written to sys.stderr, which is None when using pythonw. See issue13582 for more information.