Problem Python 2.6.1 vs 2.6 & pyWin32

[John Machin]

On 26/03/2009 9:05 AM, Mark Hammond wrote:
> On 25/03/2009 11:41 PM, John Machin wrote:
> 
>> This all sounds good. I presume that "this version of distutils" means
>> the 2.6.2/3.1 version.
> 
> Yep.
> 
>>
>> In the meantime, until 2.6.2 final is released, is my suggestion of
>> using Python 2.5 to build installers reasonable?
> 
> Yep.
> 
>> Is there a better approach?
> 
> Not that I'm aware of - hence the fixing of the installer to avoid the 
> crt completely.
> 
>> BTW, the user with the problem has not only confirmed that he did indeed
>> receive the misspelled German version of the error message :-) but also
>> has successfully installed the package using a 2.5-built installer that
>> I provided. It's curious that out of over 250 downloads of the 2.6-built
>> installer, there's been only 1 report of the installer not working.
> 
> IIRC, the installer would work OK if a 'public' or shared copy of the vc 
> runtime was installed - but it would seem unusual that 249 out of 250 
> people would have that...

Hi again, Mark,

If your recollection is correct, with the implication that a significant 
proportion of installers made by 2.6.1? 2.6.0? 2.6.any? (which?) would 
fail, then given the numbers of windows installers being produced, I 
would have expected a lot more visibility for this problem.

I have just replaced the 2.6.1-made exes on PyPI with 2.5.4-made exes 
for two packages: xlrd (the one in question above) had 282 downloads 
since 11 March, and xlwt had 231 downloads since 4 March.

So that's 512 out of 513 which have what characteristic? I suggest that 
the main common factor is that no problem was reported. In fact I only 
found out about this problem because my OP was asking some other 
question and I suggested he used the latest version and his response was 
that he had tried that first and got the infamous message -- his 
workaround was to download the wininst exe for an old version :-0 ... 
perhaps others have done the same or used the zip sdist.

Cheers,
John