Ver 2.3 install over 2.2?

[Brian Quinlan]

> Make sure you have VC6 installed, else you'll be unable to build
> extensions for Python23. VC7 worked for building Python22 extensions,
but
> no longer (and if anyone can explain why, I'd love to know).
> 
>    error: Python was built with version 6 of Visual Studio, and
>    extensions need to be built with the same version of the
>    compiler, but it isn't installed.
> 
> I'm reinstalling 2.2.3 so I can keep developing with Reportlab until I
can
> get hold of VC6 or a fix for 2.3.

Actually, extensions built with VC7 never worked (with Python compiled
with VC6). Now you get a helpful error message instead of a crash.

The reason that these extensions don't work is that VC7 introduced
incompatibilities in the C runtime library. The layout for the FILE data
type has changed, for example, so extensions using the FILE returned by
PyFile_AsFile may crash. 

You could get lucky, of course, and have a set of extensions that never
use any unsafe routines.
 
Cheers,
Brian