[python-win32] Building pywin32 with the free MS toolkit compiler (Was: Problem with installer for pywin32 with Python 2.5)

[Paul Moore]

On 4/17/06, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/16/06, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I tried building one for myself, but I'm missing some critical
> > dependencies (dsound.h?)
>
> I'm assuming this is from the DirectX SDK, which I'm in the process of
> downloading now to try it out. Are there any other downloads I should
> get in order to build pywin32? (I have the platform SDK - the setup.py
> doesn't mention any others as still being needed, but then again, it
> didn't mention the DirectX one either...)

Looks like atlbase.h is needed in win32netuse and win32netuser. That's
annoying, as it's not freely available, as far as I know.

It's possible taht ATL isn't actually needed, though - commenting the
includes out results in a successful compile. The link fails with an
odd error, though -

   Creating library build\temp.win32-2.5\Release\win32/src/win32net\win32net.lib
 and object build\temp.win32-2.5\Release\win32/src/win32net\win32net.exp
win32netmodule.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol
__imp__GetSecurityDescriptorLength at 4 referenced in function "int
__cdecl PyObject_AsNET_STRUCT(struct _object *,struct PyNET_STRUCT
*,unsigned char * *)"
(?PyObject_AsNET_STRUCT@@YAHPAU_object@@PAUPyNET_STRUCT@@PAPAE at Z)
win32netmodule.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol
__imp__GetLengthSid at 4 referenced in function "int __cdecl
PyObject_AsNET_STRUCT(struct _object *, struct PyNET_STRUCT *,unsigned
char * *)" (?PyObject_AsNET_STRUCT@@YAHPAU_object@@PAUPyNET_STRUCT@@PAPAE at Z)
build\lib.win32-2.5\win32\win32net.pyd : fatal error LNK1120: 2
unresolved externals

I'm not sure how this could be related to the ATL include - it looks
more like a declaration missing an "extern C" - but that seems
improbable.

If I comment out win32net from setup.py, I hit a problem in
win32wnet\PyNetresource.cpp, which uses ATL for Unicode conversion
macros.

I took out axdebug, as it's described as "a mess", so let's leave that
for now :-) But that uses ATL, as well...

mapiutil also failed with ATL dependencies.

But then I hit win32ui, which I'd forgotten about completely - that
uses MFC, doesn't it, so presumably there's no serious hope of getting
it working without the full Visual C product.

At this point I gave up. I was impressed by how far things got with
just the free stuff, but the lack of MFC and ATL is probably a
complete showstopper.

Anyway, I'm posting this, not so much in the hope that it's possible,
as to have it in the archives for future reference.

It was an interesting exercise, in any case :-)

Paul.