Python 2.4, distutils, and pure python packages

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Thomas Heller wrote:
>>This means that if you build a windows installer using
>>distutils - it *requires* msvcr7.dll in order to run. This is true even
>>if your package is a pure python package. This means that when someone
>>tries to use a windows installer created with Python 2.4, on a machine
>>with only python 2.3 - it will fail.
> 
> 
> Bummer.


I wonder whether it would be better to continue linking wininst.exe with
mscvrt40.dll, and use that regardless of the version used to build Python.

Alternatively, we could try to get rid of the C library altogether for
wininst.exe. For install.c, this should be possible: it primarily uses
*printf, which can be replaced with FormatMessage. The challenge, of
course, is zlib. This could be replaced with lz32, but I doubt this
would improve anything. Alternatively, we could load zlib.pyd from the
target system, but that would be tedious, I guess. OTOH, it might to
replace extract.c largely with Python source code, and run this in
an interpreter...

Regards,
Martin