[Python-Dev] VC++ 2008 Express Edition now locked away? (original) (raw)

Steve Dower Steve.Dower at microsoft.com
Wed Mar 6 18:29:11 CET 2013

From: Case Van Horsen

On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 2:20 AM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote: > Clicking this link > http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=14597 > on this Developer Guide page > http://docs.python.org/devguide/setup.html#windows > now returns a > "We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found." > page with search results. > > The first search result > http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/nl/Vsexpressinstall/thread/2dc > 7ae6a-a0e7-436b-a1b3-3597ffac6a97 suggests that one must first go to > http://profile.microsoft.com which forwards to the live.com login > page. Logging in with my un-expired non-developer account did not make > the original link work. > > The mdsn page http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/ has Visual Studio / > Download trial, which leads to > https://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/downloads > which lists 2012 and 2010 but not 2008. > > I suspect that an msdn account is required for most people to get 2008. > > A later link leads to > https://www.dreamspark.com/Product/Product.aspx?productid=34# > which suggests that vc++2008 express is also available to verified > degree students. I don't qualify so I will not try. > > So it would appear that section "1.1.3.3. Windows" of "1. Getting Started" > (setup.rst) needs further revision. > > Or perhaps we could persuade Microsoft to let us distribute it > ourselves so Windows versions of 2.7 do not become increasingly unusable.

The "Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1" is still available for download. It includes the command line compilers that are used with VS 2008. I have used to create extensions for Python 2.6 to 3.2. There is a later version of the SDK (for .NET 4.x) that includes the compilers from VS 2010.

This is the same response that I got internally.

The download link is http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3138 and you can choose to only download and install the compilers.

Cheers, Steve

To use the SDK compiler, you need to do a few manual steps first.

After starting a command window, you need to run a batch file to configure your environment. Choose the appropriate option from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin\vcvars64.bat or C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin\vcvars32.bat Then set two environment variables: set MSSdk=1 set DISTUTILSUSESDK=1

After these steps, the standard python setup.py install should work. casevh > > -- > Terry Jan Reedy

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