On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 8:23 AM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore@gmail.com> wrote:
On 16 July 2013 12:42, Oscar Benjamin <oscar.j.benjamin@gmail.com> wrote:
I thought that 64 bit Windows could run 32 bit Windows .exe files (although I don't have a way to check this).
Yes, but there are 32-bit and 64-bit exe wrappers, which I suspect is because a 32-bit exe can't load a 64-bit DLL (and may be vice versa). As I said, I don't know for sure at the moment, but it needs investigating.
That's not why they exist; the .exe's don't load the Python DLL, they just invoke python.exe. The existence of separate 32- and 64-bit .exe's is a Distribute innovation, actually; setuptools 0.6 doesn't use them. Instead, setuptools writes a manifest file to tell Windows that it doesn't need privilege escalation or to create a separate console. This meant that only one (32-bit) .exe was needed. I forget what happened with the Distribute approach or why the 64-bit version was kept after the merge; ISTM there was some other use for it, or at least Jason thought so. But DLL loading is not the reason. (Actually, after searching my email, my guess is that there actually *isn't* any need for the 64-bit .exe; ISTM that it was introduced solely as a false fix for the privilege escalation problem, that only fixes it for 64-bit Windows and doesn't help 32-bit.)