[Python-Dev] Python 2.7 patch levels turning two digit

[Steve Dower]

> Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> Le 23/06/2014 15:27, M.-A. Lemburg a écrit :
>>
>> Not sure what you mean. We've had binary wininst distributions for 
>> Windows for more than a decade, and egg and msi distributions for 8 
>> years :-)
>>
>> But without access to the VS 2008 compiler that is needed to compile 
>> those extensions,
> 
> It does seem to be available:
> http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13276
> 
> What am I missing?

That's the service pack, which will only install if you already have VS 2008 installed.

The only official source for VS 2008 these days is through an MSDN subscription, though there's a link floating around that will get to an ISO of VC 2008 Express (but it could disappear or move at any time, which would break the link for good).

It's also possible to get VC9 standalone through the Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET 3.5, but this installer has bugs, and distutils does not detect VC installs properly (it only detects Visual Studio and then assumes VC). This is fixable with a few extra files and registry keys, but not simple.

The best answer here is making VC9 available in a long-term, unsupported manner (support is the main MSFT concern - simply throwing products out there and forgetting about them is very counter-cultural). I'm working on getting people to recognize the importance of keeping the old compilers available, but it's an uphill battle. Obviously I'll post here as soon as I have something I can officially share. :)

Cheers,
Steve

> Regards
> 
> Antoine.