Multiprocessing launching too many instances of Python VM

Question

I am writing some multiprocessing code (Python 2.6.4, WinXP) that spawns processes to run background tasks. In playing around with some trivial examples, I am running into

Answer 1

I don't see anything wrong with that. Works fine on Ubuntu 9.10 (Python 2.6.4).

Are you sure you don't have cron or something starting multiple copies of your script? Or that the spawned script is not calling anything that would start a new instance, for example as a side effect of import if your code runs directly on import?