Steve Dower added the comment: Maybe I need to look through the history to see whether I actually intended the all-users install to be in System, but I don't think I did (despite writing the documentation linked - it may have been adapted from the old documentation). Applications that need Python should look in the registry or embed the embeddable distro, depending on whether they are providing access to the user's own Python (e.g. an IDE) or it's an internal implementation detail (e.g. a tool that just happens to be implemented using Python). The former should really offer options for the user to specify a path to the install as well. Reliably finding the required standard library for a copy of Python that is installed somewhere else is every bit as problematic as locating the install itself. When everyone follows PEP 514 properly it may be safe for a System32-DLL to use the registry again for finding its library, but as long as various distros want to overwrite the core registry keys, everyone is better off without it being a system component. ---------- _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue29844> _______________________________________