"This application has failed to start because tk83.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem." Uninstall Pythonwin for now and see if this goes away.
I'm pretty sure you're right that it is pythonwin, but since it doesn't seem to stop zope from starting, I can leave it in for the moment. That Pythonwin object browser is worth the ugliness of a lone Win32 error box.
Also, try the following as it has the correct slashes: C:\Program Files\Zope>bin\python.exe lib\python\ZEO\start.py -p 8800
Doh! I had spotted wrong slashes, but only corrected it on one of the two command lines, and probably was that close to getting it working but missed. Thanks for pointing it out. This is working now: C:\Program Files\Zope>bin\python lib\python\ZEO\start.py -p 8800 C:\Program Files\Zope>bin\python z2.py C:\Program Files\Zope>custom_zodb.py contains: from ZEO.ClientStorage import ClientStorage Storage = ClientStorage(('localhost', 8800)) (if I use '' instead of 'localhost', it doesn't work, BTW. The ZopeReadme should perhaps reflect that if it is generally true on win32.) (Control Panel Results) Zope Version (Zope 2.5.1 (binary release, python 2.1, win32-x86), python 2.1.3, win32) Python Version 2.1.3 (#35, Apr 8 2002, 17:47:50) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] System Platform win32 SOFTWARE_HOME C:\Program Files\Zope\lib\python INSTANCE_HOME C:\Program Files\Zope CLIENT_HOME C:\Program Files\Zope\var Database Location ('localhost', 8800) (XXX) Database Size 4.9M I can use the ZMI, and I can also startup pythonwin against zope's python and 'import Zope', so I think its all working. I think can see your point, when I had z2.py -p 8800 was I starting a 'second' storage? It seems that just starting z2.py with no parameters will find and use a custom_zodb to find the storage server correctly. Is that the right way to look at it?
PPS: Look at using INSTANCE_HOME's, the fact that you're not may be what's fouling you up...
Do I still need to use INSTANCE_HOME's for some reason, or would I just end up at the same configuration I have working here? Thanks again.