One of our politicians famously uttered "life wasn't meant to be easy" - how right he was :) Let's assume I am trying to use distutils from Python 2.4 to package an installation for both Python 2.3 and Python 2.4 (or vice-versa - trying to use 2.3 distutils to package them both). As mentioned her previously, I want to do this so I can use the features in later versions of distutils (such as the post-install-script) to package extensions for earlier versions of Python. The installation script uses PyRun_SimpleFile. This takes a FILE *. The problem is that Python 2.3 and Python 2.4 use different runtime libraries. One of them is guaranteed to crash. This violates the Python rule that Python and its extensions must use the same CRTL. I see 2 choices: * Avoid PyRun_SimpleFile, by reading the file ourself, and using PyRun_SimpleString. This should work, but is fragile, as we are still breaking that rule. * Provide 2 different wininst.exe stubs, one for MSVC6 and one for MSVC7. distutils hardcodes the knowledge of what one to use for what version. However, the problem is that this will mean people building distutils to ship will always need *both* VC6 and VC7 - VC6 just for that stub, and VC7 to build everything else. The first option is less work, and should work today, but is still naughty. Any thoughts? Mark.