I installed the python-2.5.1.msi stable package from the python.org
website using a super-user account on my system.  I installed "for all
users" and used the default location and chose to install everything,
not omitting any component.

After installation, I moved the startup menu folder to be a sub-menu of
my Programming startup menu folder.  Then I ran IDLE and typed in a few
recipes from the itertools package to ensure that everything worked. 
Then I logged out and logged back in with my normal user account.  In my
normal account, the three startup menu items "IDLE (Python GUI)",
"Module Docs", and "Python (command line)" all crash.  The first two
crash with a window titled "pythonw.exe - Application Error".  The last
one opens an empty command prompt window before dying with a window
titled "python.exe - Application Error".  All the error windows have the
text, "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000022). Click
on OK to terminate the application"

Since it works when I am logged in as an administrator, my guess is that
the error has something to do with windows security.