Python installation in windows

[Oscar Benjamin]

On 11 January 2016 at 20:16, Cameron Simpson <cs at zip.com.au> wrote:
> On 11Jan2016 07:19, rusi <rustompmody at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Monday, January 11, 2016 at 6:32:14 PM UTC+5:30, navneet bhatele wrote:
>>>
>>> I have been trying to install the  "python-3.5.1-amd64-webinstall "  many
>>> times and the Set up failed is shown up with named 0*80070002 - file
>>> doesn't exist in dialog box
>>
>>
>> Which windows?
>> XP and 3.5 are not compatible
>> For XP use 3.4
>
>
> I am not a Windows user, but this question occurs a lot.
>
> Is this cryptic message a missing dependency of the installer or of Python.
> Because if it is Python surely we should be doing potential users a favour
> and mentioning this 3.5 vs XP (and earlier?) issue in nice human friendly
> prose instead of complaining about an obscure missing library file?
>
> As things stand, many users infer that they have a corrupt or broken
> download, not that they needed a different version of Python.

I think there are several different issues to do with Python 3.5 and Windows.

Firstly support for Windows XP was dropped and 3.5 was made in a way
that is incompatible with XP. However initially neither the download
page nor the installer were warning XP users leading to a lot of
confusion. I thought this was suppose to have been fixed in 3.5.1
though so the installer should now warn that it won't work on XP.

Secondly the Windows builds of 3.5 are now compiled using VS2015 and I
believe the installer itself has had something of an overhaul. This
seems to have caused a number of different problems. One problem is
that the newer VS2015 runtime requires the installation of some dll
from Microsoft. So some users are getting error messages about a
missing dll.

The error message quoted above is something else though. I can't tell
but it seems as if there are a number of distinct issues caused by the
significant changes to Python 3.5 on Windows.

> Should this be raised on python-dev?

Probably better to go for bugs.python.org. There's a few 3.5/Windows
issues already there. Not sure if this one's already listed.

--
Oscar