Three cheers for distutils 0.1! Unfortunately it fails to install itself on my NT box. D:\TEMP\Distutils-0.1>python setup.py -v install running install running build running build_py not copying distutils\ccompiler.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\core.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\errors.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\fancy_getopt.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\msvccompiler.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\spawn.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\sysconfig.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\text_file.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\unixccompiler.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\util.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\version.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\__init__.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\command\build.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\command\build_ext.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\command\build_py.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\command\dist.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\command\install.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\command\install_ext.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\command\install_py.py (output up-to-date) not copying distutils\command\__init__.py (output up-to-date) running install_py creating D:\Python1.5.2 Traceback (innermost last): File "setup.py", line 22, in ? packages = ['distutils', 'distutils.command'], File "distutils\core.py", line 87, in setup dist.run_commands () File "distutils\core.py", line 377, in run_commands self.run_command (cmd) File "distutils\core.py", line 426, in run_command cmd_obj.run () File "distutils\command\install.py", line 287, in run self.run_peer ('install_py') File "distutils\core.py", line 710, in run_peer self.distribution.run_command (command) File "distutils\core.py", line 426, in run_command cmd_obj.run () File "distutils\command\install_py.py", line 51, in run outfiles = self.copy_tree (self.build_dir, self.install_dir) File "distutils\core.py", line 773, in copy_tree self.distribution.dry_run) File "distutils\util.py", line 318, in copy_tree mkpath (dst, verbose=verbose) File "distutils\util.py", line 74, in mkpath raise DistutilsFileError, "%s: %s" % (head, errstr) distutils.errors.DistutilsFileError: D:\Python1.5.2: File exists To fix this I changed line 317 of distutils/util.py to: if not dry_run and not os.path.exists(os.path.normpath(dst)): This checks to see if the destination directory already exists before creating it. Note: I had to use normpath since for me dst was 'D:\\Python1.5.2\\' which os.path.exists claims doesn't exist, while 'D:\\Python1.5.2' does exist. -Amos