I think the problem that Deborah has encountered is a more general one on Windows: many pip-installable packages assume that a C compiler is available.
Now an "obvious" solution is for pip to recognise that a C compiler is needed and give an appropriate error message. But while that may reduce confusion, it won't actually help someone who wants to install a Python package that needs a C compiler. Of course, the error message could give a link to the appropriate compiler. And then the user (who presumably isn't a Windows compiler expert) will if they're really lucky get to download and install an enormous Visual Studio compiler. Of course they may not be so lucky and may discover that the installer tells them that they need some component (and may or may not give the link to get it). And then they get that component and, you guessed it, that component says it needs another component, ... and eventually you end up with all the pieces. And even then it doesn't necessarily work. (This has happened to me more than once.) Here's a fantasy: C:\> pip install pkg_needs_c Error: the pkg_needs_c package needs development tools which haven't been found on this computer. Run pip install --listtools pkg_needs_c for information on the required tools or run pip install --useprebuilt pkg_needs_c to download prebuilt components so no additional development tools are needed. C:\> pip install --listtools pkg_needs_c The pkg_needs_c needs Visual Studio 2015 (which itself may have additional dependencies). This can be downloaded from http://www.... C:\> pip install --useprebuilt pkg_needs_c ... This will send the minimum necessary details of the machine back to PyPI which will then do a request on a Windows server farm which will send back a matching pre-built package (building the package the first time it is needed). I have no idea if this is possible/practical! But I do think that installing dev tools on Windows can be really difficult (esp. if you're on older versions of Windows, e.g., XP, Vista, or 7) and that this can make things hard for people coming to Python on Windows. I guess the best that can be done for now is to recommend Annaconda or a similar distro with lots of prebuilt stuff. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list