[me]
Why would you want your own exceptions.py and site.py? [JimA] I don't. I never change Python library files. I am worried that they won't be found because I don't trust PYTHONPATH.
Hmm... PYTHONPATH gets inserted in front of the default sys.path. (Many moons ago that was different. But it has been like this for a loooooong time.) So are you worried that someone put a *different* exceptions.py or site.py on their path?
Again - why would anyone register their own site.py?
I wouldn't, I am worried that someone else will break my installation. Remember that site.py was invented as a site-specific module, although that function moved to sitecustomize.py.
Hm, I dug out the oldest site.py I have (used in Python 1.4), and it doesn't encourage editing it at all -- it tells you to use sitecustomize.py. I guess they could break your installation anyway, but only by messing with the general Python installation.
Sounds right. All tricks to make the app unique require using a different registry key, which requires a change to the DLL. However, you can do this without recompiling! The version string is used is embedded in a resource, so you can patch it using some kind of resource editor. Mark Hammond planned it this way!
I don't understand this. Is there documentation?
The usual :-) Python/import.c shows that import calls PyWin_FindRegisteredModule() to find a registered module before looking in sys.path (but after checking for builtin and frozen modules). PC/import_nt.c shows that PyWin_FindRegisteredModule() uses a registry key of the form "Software\Python\PythonCore\<PyWin_DLLVersionString>\Modules\<modulename><debugstring>" where <modulename> is the module name, <debugstring> is empty or "\Debug" depending on whether we are compiled with _DEBUG define. The resource value points to a file (either .py, .pyc/.pyo, .pyd or .dll; in fact any of the prefixes returned by imp.get_suffixes()). PC/dl_nt.c shows that PyWin_DLLVersionString is set to string 1000 loaded from the string resource table. PC/python_nt.rc shows that there's a stringtable with item 1000 being the MS_DLL_ID string, set to "1.5" in that file. Note that this value (PyWin_DLLVersionString) is also to Python code as sys.winver. I hope that Mark Hammond can point you to a tool that you can use to edit a string resource in an executable or DLL. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)