[python-win32] What happened to python26.dll?

[Tim Roberts]

Paul Moore wrote:
> 2009/12/8 Boar Gules <internet1 at prodigycomputing.com>:
>   
>> Just one of those baffling "security" notions embedded in Explorer, I
>> suppose.  Found it at the command line using
>>
>> dir %windir%\system32\python26.dll
>>     
>
> Are you on 64-bit Windows? Most of these problems seem to be caused by
> people being baffled by Win64's strange ways of "redirecting"
> filesystem access for 32-bit apps.
>   

Well, that's an interesting point that's worth bringing up again, but I
don't THINK that's the case here.

People need to know that, if you install the 32-bit Python on a 64-bit
Windows system, the DLL will be installed in %windir%\SysWow64.  (Yes,
32-bit DLLs go in SysWow64, and 64-bit DLLs go in System32.  Really.) 
If you use a 64-bit tool to search for it, you would find it in SysWow64.

BUT, in a 32-bit process, Windows does magic path redirection.  So, if
you were to run os.walk in a 32-bit Python process, you would find
python26.dll in %windir%\System32.  This can be incredibly confusing,
since you can go out to a command line and do "dir
\windows\system32\python26.dll" and it won't be there.

This is, in my opinion, one of the things that Microsoft really botched
in the 32-to-64 transition.

-- 
Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.