“python.exe has stopped working” suddenly appeared under Windows 10

When attempting to start python tonight, Windows 10 suddenly produced the “python.exe has stopped working” error. Examining the event in the Event Viewer didn’t provide any more useful information, but surprisingly everything worked if I launched python.exe directly from Explorer – or through bash (cygwin), but not if I launched it through the regular command line (cmd.exe).

What solved it? Removing the old directory again (even after trying a fresh install) and then explicitly finding the 64-bit version from the python download page (it gives you the 32-bit version by default, it seems). Reinstalling with the new archive fixed everything, and now it works again (and I checked “pre-compile the standard library, but that shouldn’t change anything)! Woho! Now to just reinstall quite a few virtualenvs..