I installed 3.0b3 using the Windows MSI installer on two machines, one
running 32-bit Windows XP Professional on a 64-bit AMD processor with
Python 2.5 already installed, and another a Parallels Desktop on an
Intel MacBook running Windows XP Professional with no previous Python
installation.  Both failed to run either python or pythonw, saying "This
application has failed to start because the application configuration is
incorrect. Reinstalling the application may fix the problem."

Building 3.0b3 on my MacBook from source and doing an altinstall runs fine.

I'm sorry if this is a ridiculous submission, but I have done plenty of
this sort of thing on both platforms before and am just stumped, and I
have a fairly urgent need to try something on Windows.