diff -r 4bac47eb444c Lib/idlelib/configHandler.py
--- a/Lib/idlelib/configHandler.py	Mon Feb 04 12:47:24 2013 +0200
+++ b/Lib/idlelib/configHandler.py	Mon Feb 04 14:45:05 2013 +0200
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
         cfgFile - string, fully specified configuration file name
         """
         self.file=cfgFile
-        ConfigParser.__init__(self,defaults=cfgDefaults)
+        ConfigParser.__init__(self, defaults=cfgDefaults, strict=False)
 
     def Get(self, section, option, type=None, default=None, raw=False):
         """