Missing _sre.pyd in 2.4a2 Windows installer?

[Tim Peters]

[John J. Lee]
> The subject line says it, really: I installed 2.4a2 using the MSI
> installer on python.org, and I appear to be missing this file:
> 
> C:\Python24\DLLs\_sre.pyd

That file doesn't exist in 2.4; the code it used to contain has been
folded into the core python24.dll (so _sre is builtin now, instead of
an extension module).

> As a result, Python picks up the _sre.pyd from my 2.3 installation,

That shouldn't be possible, since _sre is a builtin now.

> and I get the expected error about a bad magic number in that DLL.
>
> I think I must be doing something stupid, but what, exactly?

Don't know, can't guess.  Run Python 2.4 with the -v switch, then do

    import _sre

You should see something like

>>> import _sre
# C:\Python24\lib\encodings\cp437.pyc matches C:\Python24\lib\encodings\cp437.py
import encodings.cp437 # precompiled from C:\Python24\lib\encodings\cp437.pyc
import _sre # builtin
>>>

If you don't see something like that, it's A Clue.