Beginning question #compilersetup, #windows7, #vs2010

[eryksun]

On Sat, Sep 26, 2015 at 4:40 PM, Jeff VanderDoes
<jeffvanderdoes at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm fairly new to Python and was excited to start playing with it until I
> ran into need to compile some extensions under windows 7 64 bit.  I've done
> some searching but after more hours than I care to count being unsuccessful
> setting up MS visual studio (2015, 2012, and 2010) with service packs and
> SDKs I can tell I'm spinning my wheels and going nowhere fast.

For 3.5 you should be able to just install Visual Studio 2015
Community Edition. This is the current release of Visual Studio, so if
you encounter problems, at least finding help won't be one of them.

2.7 is built with VS 2008, which is no longer supported. But, thanks
to Steve Dower, Microsoft distributes an unsupported version for
building Python 2.7 extension modules [1].

3.4 is built with the fairly old VS 2010, for which the free Express
edition is no longer available. But you should be able to configure a
command-line build environment. Install the Windows SDK 7.1 [2] and
the VC++ 2010 SP1 Compiler Update [3]. Then run the Windows SDK 7.1
Command Prompt [4], and enter

    SetEnv /Release /x64

If you plan to do native debugging outside of Visual Studio, install
the Debugging Tools for Windows [5] when installing the SDK. You can
download public debug symbols for operating system components using
Microsoft's symbol server. To do this, create a "C:\Symbols"
directory, and set the following environment variable:

    _NT_SYMBOL_PATH=symsrv*symsrv.dll*C:\Symbols*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

Additionally you'll need Python's debug symbols, such as for 64-bit
3.4.3 [6]. I typically copy a PDB next to its related DLL/EXE. This is
what 3.5's installer does when you select the option to install debug
symbols (nice job, Steve!). You can also unzip the PDBs to a directory
that's in _NT_SYMBOL_PATH, or update the symbol path dynamically using
.sympath+ and .reload [7].

[1]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44266
[2]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8279
[3]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4422
[4]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff660764
[5]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff551063
[6]: https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.4.3/python-3.4.3.amd64-pdb.zip
[7]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff565407