Running IPython on Win32

IPython works well with Windows, even as a replacement for that clunky old cmd.exe command prompt. There are some considerations, though.

You will want to get pyreadline to get readline functionality (tab completion etc.)
The IPython config files are stored in ~/_ipython, not ~/.ipython. You should set your HOME environment variable to something sensible, e.g. c:\home to make the config files appear in c:\home\_ipython. This is especially true if you have non-ascii characters in your username and you get UnicodeError crash on startup
Console open source win32 console replacement can be used to run IPython in a freely resizeable window. See IpythonOnConsole.
You should use / as path separator instead of \, whenever possible. Tab completion just works better that way. \ works ok if you don't need proper tab completion.
If you want "IPython here" shell extension functionality (familiar from Win32 PowerToys "Command prompt here"), see this thread.

Troubleshooting

Sometimes when installing a new version of IPython, you need to remove old IPython files to get a clean slate.

To delete all traces of old IPython installation(s), delete the following files (adjust for your python installation):

Delete start menu shortcuts:

Install new IPython, launch it, run %upgrade.

There is a problem with "doctest" working on Windows with PyReadline. Please see Python dev sourceforge.net tracker [ 1708316 ] doctest work with Windows PyReadline http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1708316&group_id=5470&atid=105470 for details and a quick fix to "doctest.py"