I recently (in the last 5 days) downloaded and installed Python 2.6.x. 
Upon startup of this machine I noticed a Windows warning 
that "mysqld.exe could not start...". I really didn't pay attention to 
it until today since I had no plans to use MySQL or any other app that 
might use it.

I also use XAMPP, which does rely on MySQL. This morning when I started 
XAMPP, the MySQL server crashed on startup of XAMPP. I removed Python 
by uninstalling it, set XAMPP to start on startup and rebooted. 
Bingo!!!! No problem.

Seems like the install process does not check for other applications 
using MySQL and appropriates the db for itself. Is this correct? If 
that is correct, then the install process needs to be altered. 

Is this an issue? I don't know. You tell me.