Using CLI shows:

C:\soft\bin>fossil ver
This is fossil version [90048e0b30] 2009-08-15 02:17:27 UTC

C:\soft\bin>fossil new qqq.foss
fossil: unable to open database file

there are created files:
c:\soft\bin\qqq.foss-journal
c:\soft\bin\qqq.foss

with older version:
C:\soft\bin>fossil ver
This is fossil version [c15ec20d5a] 2009-08-12 17:35:02 UTC

C:\soft\bin>fossil new qqq.foss
fossil: table blob already exists

C:\soft\bin>fossil new qqq1.foss
project-id: 218e401e23a79e77f74e6a00e07f4b992ebde5a4
server-id:  01ad0641ed66067354b27334453f976b72c2c8ec
admin-user: usr (initial password is "b6e282")

C:\soft\bin>fossil ui qqq1.foss
Listening for HTTP requests on TCP port 8080
Launch webbrowser: start http://127.0.0.1:8080/
Type Ctrl-C to stop the HTTP server
empty repo could be browsed
 
C:\soft\bin>fossil open qqq1.foss
fossil: unable to find the name of a repository database

C:\soft\bin>fossil status
fossil: unable to find the name of a repository database

drh added on 2009-08-15 12:05:54:
I am unable to replicate this problem. Fossil version 90048e0b30 is working fine for me on winXP. The "ZIP Archive" link works fine too.

Please provide addition information on how to cause the problem.

anonymous claiming to be tsbg added on 2009-08-15 12:29:36:
When I try to download a Zip archive from the following link: http://www.fossil-scm.org/index.html/info/90048e0b30, after some time the following message gets displayed:

*** glibc detected *** /usr/bin/fossil: realloc(): invalid next size: 0x081726f8 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
[0x80d8a5b]
[0x80db45e]
[0x80dc462]
[0x8071771]
[0x8071a59]
[0x8071bbe]
[0x805b0fe]
[0x805b3c8]
[0x805bc67]
[0x80bde75]
[0x8048131]
======= Memory map: ========

It seems there is something broken on the fossil web server.

HTH

-- tsbg

anonymous claiming to be PF added on 2009-08-15 12:51:53:
I can confirm the same situation, downloading from link:

http://www.fossil-scm.org/fossil/zip/Fossil-292e585661.zip?uuid=292e585661b01026cf550a6000311947c64d4e75

creates zip file containing only following lines:

*** glibc detected *** /usr/bin/fossil: realloc(): invalid next size: 0x08181298 ***
======= Backtrace: =========
[0x80d8a5b]
[0x80db45e]
[0x80dc462]
[0x8071771]
[0x8071a59]
[0x8071bbe]
[0x805b0fe]
[0x805b3c8]
[0x805bc67]
[0x80bde75]
[0x8048131]
======= Memory map: ========

drh added on 2009-08-15 13:24:12:
Fixed by check-in 5b91887495c