[Michael Haubenwallner, tries Zope-2.8.0-b2-win32.exe from http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.8.0b2 ]
Just tried that on my Win2K Laptop - after starting "runzope.bat" is was presented with a windows alert box and no startup messages written to the command window. It took me some time to realize that Zope was already running. Login is possible and ZMI is working ok.
Here is some data for you (especially the Alert-box content): http://www.zope.org/Members/d2m/zope-2.8.0-b2_windows/startup.txt
The """ Windows Alert-Box (translated from German): ----------------- "?PyWinObject_AsDEVMODE@@YAHPAU_object@@PAPAU_devicemodeA@@H@Z" not found in DLL "pywintypes23.dll" """ there almost certainly means that Zope is picking up an unintended (old) version of pywin32 (also known as win32all, especially older versions). For example, if you have your own Python installation (apart from the one Zope ships with), and installed win32all for it, it appears hard to stop Zope's Python from finding that one instead of the pywin32 Zope ships with.
http://www.zope.org/Members/d2m/zope-2.8.0-b2_windows/event.log
The 'signal handler' problem seems to persist.
By this I think you mean these kinds of lines in your event.log: 2005-06-04T19:07:12 WARNING Z2 Can not install signal handlers. Please install (or upgrade) your pywin32 installation (https://sf.net/projects/pywin32) I believe that's also a consequence of Zope's Python picking up an unintended, old version of pywin32. The good (or maybe just ironic <wink>) news is that appears to allow Zope to at least start. If you uninstalled all older versions of pywin32/win32all, I bet you'd get the same result I got (Zope _would_ try to install signal handlers then, and Zope startup would die as a result). Thanks for trying it!