setuptools catch 22

[Kay Schluehr]

On 16 Apr., 17:39, Mac <bob.u... at gmail.com> wrote:
> We've got ActiveState Python 2.6 installed on a Windows XP box, and I
> pulled down the latest archgenxml package (2.2) in order to get it
> running under this installation of Python.  I unpacked the tarball for
> the package and tried running `python setup.py build' but got an
> ImportError exception: "no module named setuptools."  So back to
> Google, where I findhttp://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools, which
> says "[For Windows] install setuptools using the provided .exe
> installer."  I go down to the bottom of the page and I see that there
> is no .exe installer for Python 2.6.  All there is for that version of
> Python is setuptools-0.6c9-py2.6.egg.  I get the impression from the
> references to "Python Eggs" on the setuptools page that setuptools is
> a utility for installing Python Eggs.  So we're supposed to use a
> utility that isn't installed yet to install that utility?  Does anyone
> else understand how lame this is?  

Yes, but there is a known workaround: just download the mantioned
setuptools egg and unpack it - it's basically just a zipped python
package - and place it at your PYTHONPATH. Then it will also be found
by every tool that imports setuptools.