Even if all authors developed perfect packages, and all users installed them 100% per instructions, that still would not address the core issues which all users need to apply for their own files, folders and modules and setting paths for them.

Not getting it still. In Windows, once you install Python or ActivePython as a self-installing executable there should be no reason, under normal circumstances, to have to touch path issues again. What ever needs to be done with the environment variables, is done at set-up. There are a few things that should be understood, about either using .pth files to extend the search path, or the magic of __init__.py files in sub-directories of the search path. But those are usually developer, distributer issues, not user issues That magic is normally hidden from the user (in the sense they don't *need* to understand it) if the application or library chooses to play by the installation rules. I, for example, don't expect a PyGeo user to have a handle on any of that. It took me a while (we witnesses it here) to understand my "responsibilities" as a distributor of Python software. But it took me a few years to have anything to distribute. Once PyGeo is installed (I am assuming the README instructions are read and followed), one should be able to run a PyGeo script from any directory, using any editor capable of automating nothing more than a call of "python pathtoscript/pygeoscript.py". I find an editor near essential as an intermediary only because I do find navigating paths through Python's os module cumbersome, and since it can't be assumed the the callable script pygeoscript.py is on any path, than one must call it, if at a prompt, either by navigating to its directory, or calling it through its fully qualified pathname. I find it much easier to pull it up in a editor and run it from there (where the call to the fully qualified pathname is essentially automated). Textpad (for Windows), IDLE, SciTE (crossplatform) are the ones I happen to haved used. The Big Guys do emacs or vim. But since I am used to calling Python scripts through an editor, I can get flumaxed when a parameter is needed. Easy in Textpad, possible but a little clumsey (IMO) in SciTE, still don't see it, off hand, in IDLE. Truth is I use IDLE mostly for its interactive prompt, and don't know its editor features very well. That being said, I would say your frustration still sounds a little non-specific. Maybe the fact I had taken a shot at confronting Java classpath issues, when Java was young, helped me approach all these issues as they exist in Python with relative equanimity. The issues I have now are mostly on Linux, and these are usually related to the Linux distribution install of Python, (usually a version or sub-version behind what I might choose to be using), versus the installation of the version I choose to work with. From a brief converstaion with the Red Hat guys who attended the Python conference in DC, I began to understand how strictly their hands are tied by rules related to directory structures of a distribution. And therefore how unavoidable are some of these issues as they exist on Linux. The burden there of getting a handle on a potentially more complex lay of the land with a dual install of Python, ends up on the user, as is normally understood to be so in Linux world. But I would say that I remain convinced that something about your wish list - I don't, again think you are being clear - is related to some unavoidable realities of crossplatform distribution. The kinds of issues over which Python has little to no control. BTW, I have succesfully created full stand-alone, self-installing versions for Windows of both VPython and PyGeo,which include their own Python runtime environment and their own customized versions of SciTE. These installs assume no prior Python installation, nor would they disturb one that existed. Alice (boo!), for example, and many other apps have taken that tack. I may well deploy PyGeo in that form as one alternative. If I ever finish the damn docs. All that being said I can't say, all in all, I have my hands fully around the issue you are trying to express. Beyond some frustration. My suggestion is slow down. Fewer assumptions and preconceptions. Read the damn README - I don't mean to be insulting, but apparently, you didn't. The hardest part might be in being satisfied to start at the beginning. With deliberation. Without shortcuts But I had to come to terms with doing just that, when I was considerably older than you. Art