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Hmmm. 
I run a Python Tcl/Tk application several times every day - 
the very application that prompted my bug-hunt.

I do use "pythonw.exe" to launch it, but it used to hang 
almost as badly as "python.exe".

Whilst developing this app I used "python.exe" and 
experienced no hang-ups.

The Tcl guys point out that this bug is only one of several 
possible causes of the hang-up, maybe you are just out of 
luck.

The patch has fixed the problem on three Win98 machines, 
all of which exhibited the problem before updating the DLLs.

One thought - are you sure there weren't multiple copies of 
the tcl83.dll and tk83.dll files? My (only) copies were 
in "D:\python20\DLLs"

good luck,
John.