I'll focus on a side point, since I have no clue why the windows version would silently die:
2015-Dec-31 17:43:17.718750 WARNING: no two valid MoneroPulse DNS checkpoint records were received
That is odd. Can you ping checkpoints.moneropulse.co, checkpoints.moneropulse.se ?
If you have dig, what is the output of:
dig -t TXT checkpoints.moneropulse.co
dig -t TXT checkpoints.moneropulse.se
If you have another DNS tool to run on the same machine bitmonerod runs on, you can use it instead to query the TXT record for these two hosts.
I go the same error on version v0.9.0.0-release running on Ubuntu 14.04 and Trisquel 7 Here is the dig output:
$ dig -t TXT checkpoints.moneropulse.co
; <<>> DiG 9.9.5-3ubuntu0.6-Ubuntu <<>> -t TXT checkpoints.moneropulse.co
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 21580
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 9, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 3
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;checkpoints.moneropulse.co. IN TXT
;; ANSWER SECTION:
checkpoints.moneropulse.co. 600 IN TXT "450000:4d098b511ca97723e81737c448343cfd4e6dadb3d8a0e757c6e4d595e6e48357"
checkpoints.moneropulse.co. 600 IN TXT "250000:f59d31839bd909ec8830b4f7f66ff213f0bd006334c8523daee452725e5c7a79"
checkpoints.moneropulse.co. 600 IN TXT "300000:0c1cd46df6ccff90ec4ab493281f2583c344cd62216c427628990fe9db1bb8b6"
checkpoints.moneropulse.co. 600 IN TXT "275000:c003a351a091d30c769edce5005d3fc4cfca95a841f7189584e2c3f93cc7281a"
checkpoints.moneropulse.co. 600 IN TXT "350000:74da79f6a136969abd6364bd3d37af273c408d6471e8ab598e80569b42415f86"
checkpoints.moneropulse.co. 600 IN TXT "325000:4260d56368267bc2a70dd58d73c5ecf23b4e4d96e63c29a868e4a679b0741c7f"
checkpoints.moneropulse.co. 600 IN TXT "400000:1b2b0e7a30e59691491529a3d506d1ba3d6052d0f6b52198b7330b28a6f1b6ac"
checkpoints.moneropulse.co. 600 IN TXT "233000:4f69bec2af6c0852412bdd10c19e6af10c8d738fe2618b5511a98efd03ab477e"
checkpoints.moneropulse.co. 600 IN TXT "375000:c80c23e387585e12ffb6649d678e9ba328181797b9583a6d8911b77e25375737"
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
MONEROPULSE.co. 3600 IN NS TIMEWARP-AGAIN.MONEROPULSE.co.
MONEROPULSE.co. 3600 IN NS IS-IT-TRUE.MONEROPULSE.co.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
IS-IT-TRUE.MONEROPULSE.co. 5866 IN A 216.69.185.52
TIMEWARP-AGAIN.MONEROPULSE.co. 5866 IN A 208.109.255.52
;; Query time: 390 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.1.1#53(127.0.1.1)
;; WHEN: Sat Jan 02 22:05:17 PST 2016
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 909
$ dig -t TXT checkpoints.moneropulse.se
; <<>> DiG 9.9.5-3ubuntu0.6-Ubuntu <<>> -t TXT checkpoints.moneropulse.se
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 4548
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 9, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 3
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;checkpoints.moneropulse.se. IN TXT
;; ANSWER SECTION:
checkpoints.moneropulse.se. 600 IN TXT "275000:c003a351a091d30c769edce5005d3fc4cfca95a841f7189584e2c3f93cc7281a"
checkpoints.moneropulse.se. 600 IN TXT "375000:c80c23e387585e12ffb6649d678e9ba328181797b9583a6d8911b77e25375737"
checkpoints.moneropulse.se. 600 IN TXT "250000:f59d31839bd909ec8830b4f7f66ff213f0bd006334c8523daee452725e5c7a79"
checkpoints.moneropulse.se. 600 IN TXT "350000:74da79f6a136969abd6364bd3d37af273c408d6471e8ab598e80569b42415f86"
checkpoints.moneropulse.se. 600 IN TXT "233000:4f69bec2af6c0852412bdd10c19e6af10c8d738fe2618b5511a98efd03ab477e"
checkpoints.moneropulse.se. 600 IN TXT "325000:4260d56368267bc2a70dd58d73c5ecf23b4e4d96e63c29a868e4a679b0741c7f"
checkpoints.moneropulse.se. 600 IN TXT "300000:0c1cd46df6ccff90ec4ab493281f2583c344cd62216c427628990fe9db1bb8b6"
checkpoints.moneropulse.se. 600 IN TXT "450000:4d098b511ca97723e81737c448343cfd4e6dadb3d8a0e757c6e4d595e6e48357"
checkpoints.moneropulse.se. 600 IN TXT "400000:1b2b0e7a30e59691491529a3d506d1ba3d6052d0f6b52198b7330b28a6f1b6ac"
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
moneropulse.se. 3599 IN NS is-it-true.moneropulse.se.
moneropulse.se. 3599 IN NS timewarp-again.moneropulse.se.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
is-it-true.moneropulse.se. 74110 IN A 216.69.185.52
timewarp-again.moneropulse.se. 74110 IN A 208.109.255.52
;; Query time: 1107 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.1.1#53(127.0.1.1)
;; WHEN: Sat Jan 02 22:06:32 PST 2016
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 897