Python Builds for Windows

Python on Windows is built with relatively old compiler versions: Python 2.7 with Visual Studio 2008, Python 3.3 with Visual Studio 2010. If you have an application built with any different Visual Studio version, and you have Python embedded in it, you have two problems:

  1. It is a very bad idea to mix different Visual C++ runtimes. See http://siomsystems.com/mixing-visual-studio-versions/ for an explanation. This means if you use the official libraries to link in Python, you are in for some nasty surprises.
  2. The official distribution does not contain debug libraries. For some reason I don’t fully understand the python libraries have different names for debug and release builds (rather than just be located in a different directory, as I would normally approach this). This means that you cannot easily build a working debug build of your project.

So, you need to rebuild Python with the Visual Studio version you are using. Furthermore, Python builds tend to be slow in terms of upgrading dependent components. For example, Python 2.7.6 links with OpenSSL 0.9.8y and SQLite 3.6.21. So, the aim of these pages is

Downloads for Python 2.x series

Downloads for Python 3.x series

Upcoming Schedule

On my list of things to do:


GK, Apr 12, 2014