Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7

Update setuptools to 6.0 or greater. In those version setuptools can autodetect Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7 with the vcvarsall.bat.

Please reference to:

1. https://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools/6.1#id4
2. https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/issue/258

Look in the setup.py file of the package you are trying to install. If it is an older package it may be importing distutils.core.setup() rather than setuptools.setup().

I ran in to this (in 2015) with a combination of these factors:

1. The Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7 from http://aka.ms/vcpython27

2. An older package that uses distutils.core.setup()

3. Trying to do python setup.py build rather than using pip.

If you use a recent version of pip, it will force (monkeypatch) the package to use setuptools, even if its setup.py calls for distutils. However, if you are not using pip, and instead are just doing python setup.py build, the build process will use distutils.core.setup(), which does not know about the compiler install location.

Solution

Step 1: Open the appropriate Visual C++ 2008 Command Prompt

Open the Start menu or Start screen, and search for "Visual C++ 2008 32-bit Command Prompt" (if your python is 32-bit) or "Visual C++ 2008 64-bit Command Prompt" (if your python is 64-bit). Run it. The command prompt should say Visual C++ 2008 ... in the title bar.

Step 2: Set environment variables

Set these environment variables in the command prompt you just opened.

SET DISTUTILS_USE_SDK=1SET MSSdk=1

Reference http://bugs.python.org/issue23246

Step 3: Build and install

cd to the package you want to build, and run python setup.py build, then python setup.py install. If you want to install in to a virtualenv, activate it before you build.

Christian Long provides a practicable solution. But if you do not want to modify it in "Visual C++ 2008 32-bit/64-bit Command" every time, you can simply find out the location of "vcvarsall.bat", i.e. "C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Programs\Common\Microsoft\Visual C++ for Python\9.0\vcvarsall.bat", and then modify find_vcvarsall(version) function in Python27\Lib\distutils\msvc9compiler.py

like this:

def find_vcvarsall(version):    productdir= "C:/Users/UserName/AppData/Local/Programs/Common/Microsoft/Visual C++ for Python/9.0"    vcvarsall = os.path.join(productdir, "vcvarsall.bat")    if os.path.isfile(vcvarsall):        return vcvarsall    else:        return None

Simple, ugly but useful.

Note that Microsoft no longer lets you download the required Visual Studio 2008 VC++ Build Tools, but the file can be found in the archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20210106040224/https://download.microsoft.com/download/7/9/6/796EF2E4-801B-4FC4-AB28-B59FBF6D907B/VCForPython27.msi