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<div class="section" id="using-python-on-windows">
<span id="using-on-windows"></span><h1>3. Using Python on Windows<a class="headerlink" href="#using-python-on-windows" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p>This document aims to give an overview of Windows-specific behaviour you should
know about when using Python on Microsoft Windows.</p>
<div class="section" id="installing-python">
<h2>3.1. Installing Python<a class="headerlink" href="#installing-python" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Unlike most Unix systems and services, Windows does not require Python natively
and thus does not pre-install a version of Python. However, the CPython team
has compiled Windows installers (MSI packages) with every <a class="reference external" href="http://www.python.org/download/releases/">release</a> for many years.</p>
<p>With ongoing development of Python, some platforms that used to be supported
earlier are no longer supported (due to the lack of users or developers).
Check <span class="target" id="index-1126"></span><a class="reference external" href="http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0011"><strong>PEP 11</strong></a> for details on all unsupported platforms.</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li>DOS and Windows 3.x are deprecated since Python 2.0 and code specific to these
systems was removed in Python 2.1.</li>
<li>Up to 2.5, Python was still compatible with Windows 95, 98 and ME (but already
raised a deprecation warning on installation). For Python 2.6 (and all
following releases), this support was dropped and new releases are just
expected to work on the Windows NT family.</li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="http://pythonce.sourceforge.net/">Windows CE</a> is still supported.</li>
<li>The <a class="reference external" href="http://cygwin.com/">Cygwin</a> installer offers to install the <a class="reference external" href="http://cygwin.com/packages/python">Python
interpreter</a> as well; it is located under
“Interpreters.” (cf. <a class="reference external" href="ftp://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/pub/pc/gnuwin32/cygwin/mirrors/cygnus/release/python">Cygwin package source</a>, <a class="reference external" href="http://www.tishler.net/jason/software/python/">Maintainer releases</a>)</li>
</ul>
<p>See <a class="reference external" href="http://www.python.org/download/windows/">Python for Windows (and DOS)</a>
for detailed information about platforms with precompiled installers.</p>
<div class="admonition-see-also admonition seealso">
<p class="first admonition-title">See also</p>
<dl class="last docutils">
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://www.richarddooling.com/index.php/2006/03/14/python-on-xp-7-minutes-to-hello-world/">Python on XP</a></dt>
<dd>“7 Minutes to “Hello World!””
by Richard Dooling, 2006</dd>
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://diveintopython.org/installing_python/windows.html">Installing on Windows</a></dt>
<dd>in “<a class="reference external" href="http://diveintopython.org/index.html">Dive into Python: Python from novice to pro</a>”
by Mark Pilgrim, 2004,
ISBN 1-59059-356-1</dd>
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://swaroopch.com/text/Byte_of_Python:Installing_Python#For_Windows_users">For Windows users</a></dt>
<dd>in “Installing Python”
in “<a class="reference external" href="http://www.byteofpython.info">A Byte of Python</a>”
by Swaroop C H, 2003</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="alternative-bundles">
<h2>3.2. Alternative bundles<a class="headerlink" href="#alternative-bundles" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Besides the standard CPython distribution, there are modified packages including
additional functionality. The following is a list of popular versions and their
key features:</p>
<dl class="docutils">
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://www.activestate.com/Products/activepython/">ActivePython</a></dt>
<dd>Installer with multi-platform compatibility, documentation, PyWin32</dd>
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://www.enthought.com/products/epd.php">Enthought Python Distribution</a></dt>
<dd>Popular modules (such as PyWin32) with their respective documentation, tool
suite for building extensible Python applications</dd>
</dl>
<p>Notice that these packages are likely to install <em>older</em> versions of Python.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="configuring-python">
<h2>3.3. Configuring Python<a class="headerlink" href="#configuring-python" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>In order to run Python flawlessly, you might have to change certain environment
settings in Windows.</p>
<div class="section" id="excursus-setting-environment-variables">
<h3>3.3.1. Excursus: Setting environment variables<a class="headerlink" href="#excursus-setting-environment-variables" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Windows has a built-in dialog for changing environment variables (following
guide applies to XP classical view): Right-click the icon for your machine
(usually located on your Desktop and called “My Computer”) and choose
<em>Properties</em> there. Then, open the <strong>Advanced</strong> tab
and click the <strong>Environment Variables</strong> button.</p>
<p>In short, your path is:</p>
<blockquote>
<em>My Computer
‣ Properties
‣ Advanced
‣ Environment Variables</em></blockquote>
<p>In this dialog, you can add or modify User and System variables. To change
System variables, you need non-restricted access to your machine
(i.e. Administrator rights).</p>
<p>Another way of adding variables to your environment is using the <strong>set</strong>
command:</p>
<div class="highlight-none"><div class="highlight"><pre>set PYTHONPATH=%PYTHONPATH%;C:\My_python_lib
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>To make this setting permanent, you could add the corresponding command line to
your <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">autoexec.bat</span></tt>. <strong>msconfig</strong> is a graphical interface to this
file.</p>
<p>Viewing environment variables can also be done more straight-forward: The
command prompt will expand strings wrapped into percent signs automatically:</p>
<div class="highlight-none"><div class="highlight"><pre>echo %PATH%
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Consult <strong>set /?</strong> for details on this behaviour.</p>
<div class="admonition-see-also admonition seealso">
<p class="first admonition-title">See also</p>
<dl class="last docutils">
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/100843">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/100843</a></dt>
<dd>Environment variables in Windows NT</dd>
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310519">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310519</a></dt>
<dd>How To Manage Environment Variables in Windows XP</dd>
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/~louis/software/faq/q1.html">http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/~louis/software/faq/q1.html</a></dt>
<dd>Setting Environment variables, Louis J. Farrugia</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="finding-the-python-executable">
<h3>3.3.2. Finding the Python executable<a class="headerlink" href="#finding-the-python-executable" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Besides using the automatically created start menu entry for the Python
interpreter, you might want to start Python in the DOS prompt. To make this
work, you need to set your <span class="target" id="index-1127"></span><strong class="xref">%PATH%</strong> environment variable to include the
directory of your Python distribution, delimited by a semicolon from other
entries. An example variable could look like this (assuming the first two
entries are Windows’ default):</p>
<div class="highlight-none"><div class="highlight"><pre>C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\Python25
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Typing <strong>python</strong> on your command prompt will now fire up the Python
interpreter. Thus, you can also execute your scripts with command line options,
see <a class="reference external" href="cmdline.html#using-on-cmdline"><em>Command line</em></a> documentation.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="finding-modules">
<h3>3.3.3. Finding modules<a class="headerlink" href="#finding-modules" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Python usually stores its library (and thereby your site-packages folder) in the
installation directory. So, if you had installed Python to
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">C:\Python\</span></tt>, the default library would reside in
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">C:\Python\Lib\</span></tt> and third-party modules should be stored in
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">C:\Python\Lib\site-packages\</span></tt>.</p>
<p>You can add folders to your search path to make Python’s import mechanism search
in these directories as well. Use <span class="target" id="index-1128"></span><a class="reference external" href="cmdline.html#envvar-PYTHONPATH"><strong class="xref">PYTHONPATH</strong></a>, as described in
<a class="reference external" href="cmdline.html#using-on-envvars"><em>Environment variables</em></a>, to modify <a title="sys.path" class="reference external" href="../library/sys.html#sys.path"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">sys.path</span></tt></a>. On Windows, paths are
separated by semicolons, though, to distinguish them from drive identifiers
(<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">C:\</span></tt> etc.).</p>
<p>Modifying the module search path can also be done through the Windows registry:
Edit
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\</span><em><span class="pre">version</span></em><span class="pre">\PythonPath\</span></tt>,
as described above for the environment variable <span class="target" id="index-1129"></span><strong class="xref">%PYTHONPATH%</strong>. A
convenient registry editor is <strong>regedit</strong> (start it by typing “regedit”
into <em>Start ‣ Run</em>).</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="executing-scripts">
<h3>3.3.4. Executing scripts<a class="headerlink" href="#executing-scripts" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Python scripts (files with the extension <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.py</span></tt>) will be executed by
<strong>python.exe</strong> by default. This executable opens a terminal, which stays
open even if the program uses a GUI. If you do not want this to happen, use the
extension <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.pyw</span></tt> which will cause the script to be executed by
<strong>pythonw.exe</strong> by default (both executables are located in the top-level
of your Python installation directory). This suppresses the terminal window on
startup.</p>
<p>You can also make all <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.py</span></tt> scripts execute with <strong>pythonw.exe</strong>,
setting this through the usual facilities, for example (might require
administrative rights):</p>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p class="first">Launch a command prompt.</p>
</li>
<li><p class="first">Associate the correct file group with <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">.py</span></tt> scripts:</p>
<div class="highlight-none"><div class="highlight"><pre>assoc .py=Python.File
</pre></div>
</div>
</li>
<li><p class="first">Redirect all Python files to the new executable:</p>
<div class="highlight-none"><div class="highlight"><pre>ftype Python.File=C:\Path\to\pythonw.exe "%1" %*
</pre></div>
</div>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="additional-modules">
<h2>3.4. Additional modules<a class="headerlink" href="#additional-modules" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Even though Python aims to be portable among all platforms, there are features
that are unique to Windows. A couple of modules, both in the standard library
and external, and snippets exist to use these features.</p>
<p>The Windows-specific standard modules are documented in
<a class="reference external" href="../library/windows.html#mswin-specific-services"><em>MS Windows Specific Services</em></a>.</p>
<div class="section" id="pywin32">
<h3>3.4.1. PyWin32<a class="headerlink" href="#pywin32" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>The <a class="reference external" href="http://python.net/crew/mhammond/win32/">PyWin32</a> module by Mark Hammond
is a collection of modules for advanced Windows-specific support. This includes
utilities for:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><a class="reference external" href="http://www.microsoft.com/com/">Component Object Model</a> (COM)</li>
<li>Win32 API calls</li>
<li>Registry</li>
<li>Event log</li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fe1cf721%28VS.80%29.aspx">Microsoft Foundation Classes</a> (MFC)
user interfaces</li>
</ul>
<p><a class="reference external" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20060524042422/http://www.python.org/windows/pythonwin/">PythonWin</a> is a sample MFC application
shipped with PyWin32. It is an embeddable IDE with a built-in debugger.</p>
<div class="admonition-see-also admonition seealso">
<p class="first admonition-title">See also</p>
<dl class="last docutils">
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://timgolden.me.uk/python/win32_how_do_i.html">Win32 How Do I...?</a></dt>
<dd>by Tim Golden</dd>
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://www.boddie.org.uk/python/COM.html">Python and COM</a></dt>
<dd>by David and Paul Boddie</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="py2exe">
<h3>3.4.2. Py2exe<a class="headerlink" href="#py2exe" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p><a class="reference external" href="http://www.py2exe.org/">Py2exe</a> is a <a title="Support for building and installing Python modules into an existing Python installation." class="reference external" href="../library/distutils.html#module-distutils"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">distutils</span></tt></a> extension (see
<a class="reference external" href="../distutils/extending.html#extending-distutils"><em>Extending Distutils</em></a>) which wraps Python scripts into executable Windows
programs (<tt class="docutils literal"><em><span class="pre">*</span></em><span class="pre">.exe</span></tt> files). When you have done this, you can distribute
your application without requiring your users to install Python.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="wconio">
<h3>3.4.3. WConio<a class="headerlink" href="#wconio" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Since Python’s advanced terminal handling layer, <a title="(Unix) An interface to the curses library, providing portable terminal handling." class="reference external" href="../library/curses.html#module-curses"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">curses</span></tt></a>, is restricted to
Unix-like systems, there is a library exclusive to Windows as well: Windows
Console I/O for Python.</p>
<p><a class="reference external" href="http://newcenturycomputers.net/projects/wconio.html">WConio</a> is a wrapper for
Turbo-C’s <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">CONIO.H</span></tt>, used to create text user interfaces.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="compiling-python-on-windows">
<h2>3.5. Compiling Python on Windows<a class="headerlink" href="#compiling-python-on-windows" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>If you want to compile CPython yourself, first thing you should do is get the
<a class="reference external" href="http://python.org/download/source/">source</a>. You can download either the
latest release’s source or just grab a fresh <a class="reference external" href="http://www.python.org/dev/faq/#how-do-i-get-a-checkout-of-the-repository-read-only-and-read-write">checkout</a>.</p>
<p>For Microsoft Visual C++, which is the compiler with which official Python
releases are built, the source tree contains solutions/project files. View the
<tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">readme.txt</span></tt> in their respective directories:</p>
<table border="1" class="docutils">
<colgroup>
<col width="35%" />
<col width="25%" />
<col width="40%" />
</colgroup>
<thead valign="bottom">
<tr><th class="head">Directory</th>
<th class="head">MSVC version</th>
<th class="head">Visual Studio version</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody valign="top">
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PC/VC6/</span></tt></td>
<td>6.0</td>
<td>97</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PC/VS7.1/</span></tt></td>
<td>7.1</td>
<td>2003</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PC/VS8.0/</span></tt></td>
<td>8.0</td>
<td>2005</td>
</tr>
<tr><td><tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PCbuild/</span></tt></td>
<td>9.0</td>
<td>2008</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Note that not all of these build directories are fully supported. Read the
release notes to see which compiler version the official releases for your
version are built with.</p>
<p>Check <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">PC/readme.txt</span></tt> for general information on the build process.</p>
<p>For extension modules, consult <a class="reference external" href="../extending/windows.html#building-on-windows"><em>Building C and C++ Extensions on Windows</em></a>.</p>
<div class="admonition-see-also admonition seealso">
<p class="first admonition-title">See also</p>
<dl class="last docutils">
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://sebsauvage.net/python/mingw.html">Python + Windows + distutils + SWIG + gcc MinGW</a></dt>
<dd>or “Creating Python extensions in C/C++ with SWIG and compiling them with
MinGW gcc under Windows” or “Installing Python extension with distutils
and without Microsoft Visual C++” by Sébastien Sauvage, 2003</dd>
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://oldwiki.mingw.org/index.php/Python%20extensions">MingW – Python extensions</a></dt>
<dd>by Trent Apted et al, 2007</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="other-resources">
<h2>3.6. Other resources<a class="headerlink" href="#other-resources" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<div class="admonition-see-also admonition seealso">
<p class="first admonition-title">See also</p>
<dl class="last docutils">
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pythonwin32/">Python Programming On Win32</a></dt>
<dd>“Help for Windows Programmers”
by Mark Hammond and Andy Robinson, O’Reilly Media, 2000,
ISBN 1-56592-621-8</dd>
<dt><a class="reference external" href="http://www.imladris.com/Scripts/PythonForWindows.html">A Python for Windows Tutorial</a></dt>
<dd>by Amanda Birmingham, 2004</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sphinxsidebar">
<div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper">
<h3><a href="../contents.html">Table Of Contents</a></h3>
<ul>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#">3. Using Python on Windows</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#installing-python">3.1. Installing Python</a></li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#alternative-bundles">3.2. Alternative bundles</a></li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#configuring-python">3.3. Configuring Python</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#excursus-setting-environment-variables">3.3.1. Excursus: Setting environment variables</a></li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#finding-the-python-executable">3.3.2. Finding the Python executable</a></li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#finding-modules">3.3.3. Finding modules</a></li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#executing-scripts">3.3.4. Executing scripts</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#additional-modules">3.4. Additional modules</a><ul>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#pywin32">3.4.1. PyWin32</a></li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#py2exe">3.4.2. Py2exe</a></li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#wconio">3.4.3. WConio</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#compiling-python-on-windows">3.5. Compiling Python on Windows</a></li>
<li><a class="reference external" href="#other-resources">3.6. Other resources</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
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