This is the readme for the Python for Win32 (pywin32) extensions source code. See CHANGES.txt for recent changes. 'setup.py' is a standard distutils build script. You probably want to: % setup.py install or % setup.py --help These extensions require the same version of MSVC as used for the corresponding version of Python itself. Some extensions require a recent "Platform SDK" from Microsoft, and in general, the latest service packs should be installed, but run 'setup.py' without any arguments to see specific information about dependencies. A vanilla MSVC installation should be able to build most extensions and list any extensions that could not be built due to missing libraries - if the build actually fails with your configuration, please log a bug via http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32.