How to install local module other than in "site-packages"?

[Jive Dadson]

Diez B. Roggisch wrote:
> Am 18.01.10 01:07, schrieb Jive Dadson:
>>   (My apologies if this question shows up twice.  I posted it quite a
>> while ago, and it's yet to show up.)
>>
>> This is no doubt a beginner's question, but I've searched for the answer
>> for quite a while, to no avail. I'm running Python 2.6 under Windows XP.
>>
>> How do I install a module that I wrote, without putting it in the
>> site-packages directory for a specific release? I have stuff that, to
>> the best of my knowledge and belief, ought to work under any release. I
>> do not want to have multiple copies of it. When I edit one of the
>> modules, I want it to "take" for every release. Is that clear? Hope so.
> 
> Setting the PYTHONPATH environment variable should work.
> 
> Diez

I was trying that just now.  So far, no joy.  Can you type up a DUMMIES 
version?

There was no environment variable PYTHONPATH.  I added one to my "User 
Variables."  It's still not finding anything.  And yes, I closed and 
re-opened my Python shell before I tested it.