[SciPy-user] Installing Ipython

[Fernando Perez]

Howey, David A wrote:
> I'm getting a strange error when trying to install IPython on my wife's laptop (under Win98SE). Everything else (Python 2.3, IDLE, ctypes, readline, scipy, numpy, matplotlib etc) is installed on the laptop and works fine. But when I install Ipython, when it's running the post install script, I get the following error:
>  
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>  File "<string>", line 74, in ?
>  File "<string>", line 22, in install
> OSError: no such folder (CSIDL_COMMON_PROGRAMS)
> *** run_installscript: internal error 0xFFFFFFF ***
>  
>  
> Does anyone know how to rectify this?

Sorry for missing this one on the first pass.  The problem is most likely due 
to the post-install script not being compatible with Win98.  I don't have 
access to win32 machines, and win9x is getting rare these days, so things are 
hardly tested there.

You can just install ipython manually yourself: it won't give you start menu 
icons and whatnot, but it will work.  From the README_windows.txt file:

Installation
------------

Double-click the supplied .exe installer file.  If all goes well, that's all
you need to do. You should now have an IPython entry in your Start Menu.

In case the automatic installer does not work for some reason, you can
download the ipython-XXX.tar.gz file, which contains the full IPython source
distribution (the popular WinZip can read .tar.gz files). After uncompressing
the archive, you can install it at a command terminal just like any other
Python module, by using python setup.py install'. After this completes, you
can run the supplied win32_manual_post_install.py script which will add
the relevant shortcuts to your startup menu.

------------------------------

Chances are the win32_manual_post_install.py won't run even manually for you, 
but all it does is make some convenience Start menu shortcuts (ipython and 
manuals, mostly).  You can either live without them, or make them by hand. 
They are not essential for ipython's functionality.

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any further questions.

Cheers,

f