Download Microsoft C/C++ compiler for use with Python 2.6/2.7 ASAP

[Jonathan Hartley]

On Jul 6, 4:50 pm, sturlamolden <sturlamol... at yahoo.no> wrote:
> Just a little reminder:
>
> Microsoft has withdrawn VS2008 in favor of VS2010. The express version
> is also unavailable for download. >:((
>
> We can still get a VC++ 2008 compiler required to build extensions for
> the official Python 2.6 and 2.7 binary installers here (Windows 7 SDK
> for .NET 3.5 SP1):
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=71DEB800-C59...
>
> Download today, before it goes away!
>
> Microsoft has now published a download for Windows 7 SDK for .NET 4.
> It has the VC++ 2010 compiler. It can be a matter of days before the VC
> ++ 2008 compiler is totally unavailable.


I presume this problem would go away if future versions of Python
itself were compiled on Windows with something like MinGW gcc. Also,
this would solve the pain of Python developers attempting to
redistribute py2exe versions of their programs (i.e. they have to own
a Visual Studio license to legally be able to redistribute the
required C runtime) I don't understand enough to know why Visual
Studio was chosen instead of MinGW. Can anyone shed any light on that
decision?

Many thanks

  Jonathan Hartley