Problem Installing/Using Windows Extensions

[David Steffen]

Howdy:

  I'm trying to use Pythonwin with Python 1.52 under Windows 95 and am
consistently running into a problem that I don't understand at all,
probably because I know relatively little about Windows.

  When I selected "COM Makepy Utility" from the Tools menu of
Pythonwin, I got the following error message:

"""
>>> Failed to execute command:
from win32com.client import makepy;makepy.main()
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "C:\Program Files\Python\Pythonwin\pywin\framework\toolmenu.py"\
, line 103, in HandleToolCommand
    exec "%s\n" % pyCmd  File "<string>", line 1, in ?
  File "C:\Program Files\Python\win32com\client\makepy.py", line 46, \
in ?
    import genpy, string, sys, os, types, pythoncom
  File "C:\Program Files\Python\win32com\client\genpy.py", line 16, in ?
    import pythoncom
    Import Error: DLL load failed: A device attached to the system is \
not functioning.
"""

  I noted that what I had was version 1.25, and that version 1.32 was
up on Mark Hammond's site on starship python, so I installed the newer
version.  The installed completed, but with three error messages near
the end:

"""
Registering COM Server AXScript Engine

Registration of the AXScript Engine COM server failed.

Installation will continue, but this server will require manual
registration before it will function.

exceptions.ImportError: DLL load failed: A device attached to the
system is not functioning.
"""

...with the other two messages being similar ones about the Python
Interpreter COM server and the Dictionary COM server.

I'd be delighted to RTFM, if I could find the relevant M (I've looked
in the included Python docs and on the python.org and starship python
websites).

I'd be happy to register the servers manually, if that would solve the
problem and if I had a clue as to what than meant.

If there is a device not functioning on my laptop, I'd love to know
that, but a disk scan indicates no problems and I haven't noticed any
other problems with my laptop.  I'm thinking I may be missing a DLL,
driver, or other software component; if anyone could suggest which one,
I'd be pleased as punch.

Thanks in advance!

-David Steffen-