Trouble Installing TTX/FontTools (asks for .NET Framework Packages)

[weston]

I'm trying to install FontTools ("a library for manipulating fonts,
written in Python") on a Win XP box, and I'm given a bit of pause that
this process seems to require downloading some MS .NET framework
packages -- at least, this is what the "setup.py" script has told when
I've tried to run it:

"error: The .NET Framework SDK needs to be installed before building
extensions
for Python."

Hmmm. It gets a bit worse, too. If one searches for the .NET Framework
SDK, one arrives at a page on the Microsoft site which states: "You
must install the .NET Framework Redistributable Package version 1.1
prior to installing the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK version 1.1."

Is this really the case? It seems odd that a python library would
require anything related to .NET. Could I have messed up somewhere in
the installation process?