Python 3.8.13 for Windows XP SP3

[dmiranda]

On 10/7/2022 at 12:03 PM, cmalex said:

Most of wheels were built with http://files.1f0.de/mingw/mingw-w64-gcc-6.1-stable-r20.7z . http://files.1f0.de/mingw/mingw-w64-gcc-10.3-stable-r34.7z also work well on WinXP. Simple bat example

set "PATH=C:\Python38;D:\Mingw_61\bin;%PATH%"

python setup.py -c mingw32

Hi there.  It's been a decade since I've tried to build something, but all this chat has got me hooked to try and see if old XP can do it. I decided to give  a try to MSYS from https://github.com/akosela/msys2-xp, which claims pacman support, using http://files.1f0.de/mingw/mingw-w64-gcc-10.3-stable-r34.7z for mingw32.

"This project specifically aims to compile Yamagi Quake II for Windows XP. It includes all of the required dependencies. It also provides some other useful programs: mutt, irssi, tmux, git, ssh, lftp, curl/wget. If you need additional packages that still work under this version of MSYS2 you can take a look here: https://mirrors.huaweicloud.com/msys2. Download them to /msys2/var/cache/pacman/pkg and install with: $ pacman -U <package>.pkg.tar.xz"

I plan to also play with the minimalist https://archive.org/details/msys2xp, which comes with its own mingw 32 and a (alleged) control of package integrity.

I'm on 32, so I delete all 64.

In the meanwhile, I've been trying your set "PATH=C:\Python38;D:\Mingw_61\bin;%PATH%", but I run into an issue with "python setup.py -c mingw32": setup.py, not found. I searched in the files and found ...\Python\Lib\test\libregrtest\setup.py. Is that the one I'm supposed to use?

Thank you very much, Cmalex (and Zorba).

 

Edited October 30, 2024 by dmiranda

[Zorba the Geek]

On 30 October 2024 at 1:01 AM, dmiranda said:

In the meanwhile, I've been trying your set "PATH=C:\Python38;D:\Mingw_61\bin;%PATH%", but I run into an issue with "python setup.py -c mingw32": setup.py, not found. I searched in the files and found ...\Python\Lib\test\libregrtest\setup.py. Is that the one I'm supposed to use?

Where did you get "PATH=C:\Python38;D:\Mingw_61\bin;%PATH%" from?  To me this looks odd because the the path to Python38 is in the C drive and the path to Mingw is in the D drive.  No wonder you are having problems.  I cannot be bothered with virtual environments and all that, so alI I do is run a batch file to set the Python paths and change into the folder containing setup.py.  The path to Mingw is set in the Windows registry in this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment

and is usually entered in System Properties/Advanced/Environment Variables.

You probably know this already, but for newbies it is necessary to create a file named distutils.cfg in the folder Python38/lib/distutils with these entries:

[build]
compiler=mingw32

[build_ext]
compiler=mingw32

My batch file for setting the Python environment variables is included below:

CP38_Env.bat

[dmiranda]

9 hours ago, Zorba the Geek said:

You probably know this already, but for newbies it is necessary to create a file named distutils.cfg in the folder Python38/lib/distutils with these entries:

[build]
compiler=mingw32

[build_ext]
compiler=mingw32

Hi Zorba, I misunderstod cmalex's wording, that's all. As per python, I'm a newb (so thank you very much for the indications above). msys-mingw I used to play with back when xp was young and shinny, so everuthing was all setup and updated with little (relative to today) user input, a long time ago. Cheers!

[Zorba the Geek]

On 28 October 2024 at 2:51 PM, dmiranda said:

tcl8.6 and tkl8.6 (as in zorba's and cmalex folders) don't work. Doing the following seems to make the trick:

move root\wish86t.exe and root\tclsh86t.exe into root\TCL\tclsh86t.exe and root\TCL\wish86t.exe
move the following folders from root\TLC to root\Lib (only files get left in TLC)

dde1.4, itcl4.2.2, nmake,reg1.3, sqlite3.36.0, tlcl8, tdbc1.1.3, tdbcmysql1.1.3, tdbcodbc1.1.3,
tdbcpostgres1.1.3, tdbcsqlite31.1.3, thread2.8.7, tcl8.6, tk8.6

This seems really weird.  I can only suppose that there is a problem with paths somewhere.  You can see a list of Python's built-in search paths using the following command:

python.exe -c "import sys;print(sys.path)"

This gives the following list for Python 3.8.1350:

D:\Python38
D:\Python38\DLLs
D:\Python38\Lib
D:\Python38\lib\site-packages
D:\Python38\lib\site-packages\win32
D:\Python38\lib\site-packages\win32\lib
D:\Python38\lib\site-packages\Pythonwin
D:\Python38\lib\site-packages\pywin32_system32
D:\Python38\python38.zip
D:\Python38\site-packages

Here is the list of paths for Python 3.4:

D:\Python34
D:\Python34\DLLs
D:\Python34\site-packages
D:\Python34\Lib
D:\WINDOWS\system32\python34.zip
D:\Python34lib\site-packages

There does not need to be a path for the TCL directory because tk86t.dll and tcl86t.dll are in the root directory along with python38.dll.  tk86t.dll and tcl86t.dll have the paths to their libraries baked in at compilation, but if there is a problem you could set these environment variables;

set TK_LIBRARY=%SystemDrive%\Python38\TCL\tk8.6
set TCL_LIBRARY=%SystemDrive%\Python38\TCL\tcl8.6

If you have installed Python somewhere other than the root of the system drive you should use these commands:

set TK_LIBRARY=.\Python38\TCL\tk8.6
set TCL_LIBRARY=.\Python38\TCL\tcl8.6

I did a test to see if the Tkinter command line (TCL) could be invoked in the usual way using instructions at a site titled Python-Tcl-Interactions

First start the Python interpreter by typing python then enter.  At the command prompt enter these commands to start an instance of the Tcl interpreter:

import tkinter
tcl_intrpr = tkinter.Tcl()

You can do a test to show that the Tcl interpreter is actually invoked by doing these commands to make a simple calculation:

res = tcl_intrpr.eval('expr 12+23')
res
'35'

This proved that Tcl is operating as expected using cmalex's distribution of Python 3.8.1350 for Windows XP.

[K4sum1]

On 2/12/2024 at 2:09 PM, Zorba the Geek said:

Yes, I am using Pyinstaller 4.10 under Windows XP with Visual Studio 2010 to package XP compatible binaries of LOKI the IOC scanner.  Needless to say I have installed cmalex's XP compatible build of Python 3.8.13.

How did you patch Pyinstaller 4.10 to work with XP?

I first tried 6.1.0 because it was what the project I use originally supported and had only a few missing functions. I patched the source code, rebuilt and used it but I just get a blank Unhandled exception in script error when it's opened.

Then I found this and decided to try 4.10, but it still has one of the things I need to patch

So I carried that patch over to 4.10, and it built fine, but when installing it, I get this error and I'm not sure what to do.

(env_build) C:\Users\Admin\Documents\GitHub\xl-converter\misc\pyinstaller>pip install .
Processing c:\users\admin\documents\github\xl-converter\misc\pyinstaller
  Installing build dependencies ... done
  Getting requirements to build wheel ... done
  Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) ... error
  error: subprocess-exited-with-error

  × Preparing metadata (pyproject.toml) did not run successfully.
  │ exit code: 1
  ╰─> [41 lines of output]
      Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "C:\Users\Admin\Documents\GitHub\xl-converter\env_build\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pep517\in_process\_in_process.py", line 363, in <module>
          main()
        File "C:\Users\Admin\Documents\GitHub\xl-converter\env_build\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pep517\in_process\_in_process.py", line 345, in main
          json_out['return_val'] = hook(**hook_input['kwargs'])
        File "C:\Users\Admin\Documents\GitHub\xl-converter\env_build\lib\site-packages\pip\_vendor\pep517\in_process\_in_process.py", line 164, in prepare_metadata_for_build_wheel
          return hook(metadata_directory, config_settings)
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\build_meta.py", line 376, in prepare_metadata_for_build_wheel
          self.run_setup()
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\build_meta.py", line 521, in run_setup
          super().run_setup(setup_script=setup_script)
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\build_meta.py", line 319, in run_setup
          exec(code, locals())
        File "<string>", line 249, in <module>
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\__init__.py", line 117, in setup
          return distutils.core.setup(**attrs)
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\_distutils\core.py", line 157, in setup
          dist.parse_config_files()
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\dist.py", line 651, in parse_config_files
          setupcfg.parse_configuration(
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\config\setupcfg.py", line 199, in parse_configuration
          meta.parse()
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\config\setupcfg.py", line 512, in parse
          section_parser_method(section_options)
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\config\setupcfg.py", line 487, in parse_section
          self[name] = value
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\config\setupcfg.py", line 305, in __setitem__
          parsed = self.parsers.get(option_name, lambda x: x)(value)
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\config\setupcfg.py", line 604, in _parse_version
          return expand.version(self._parse_attr(value, self.package_dir, self.root_dir))
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\config\setupcfg.py", line 429, in _parse_attr
          return expand.read_attr(attr_desc, package_dir, root_dir)
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\config\expand.py", line 186, in read_attr
          module = _load_spec(spec, module_name)
        File "C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-5axojfce\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools\config\expand.py", line 207, in _load_spec
          spec.loader.exec_module(module)
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap_external>", line 843, in exec_module
        File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 219, in _call_with_frames_removed
        File "C:\Users\Admin\Documents\GitHub\xl-converter\misc\pyinstaller\PyInstaller.py", line 15, in <module>
          from PyInstaller.__main__ import run
      ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'PyInstaller.__main__'; 'PyInstaller' is not a package
      [end of output]

  note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: metadata-generation-failed

× Encountered error while generating package metadata.
╰─> See above for output.

note: This is an issue with the package mentioned above, not pip.
hint: See above for details.

 

[cmalex]

Greetings.

https://mega.nz/folder/itlRGKyB#8XNJOvlebW8ghCjaiJrk0w

https://mega.nz/file/PhMAEZ7L#8PoBTs7sTt2e7wb3tRotEZhTv9TildrgZTt_lD_kvGI

This is archives of all that i'd used to compile wheels undef WinXP.

I`d build it at Visual studio 2017 with installed v140_xp toolset

For building wheels i have used original MinGW https://osdn.net/projects/mingw/ under WinXP

MinGW_all.7z - mingw compilers. Root folder was D:\

Python39NoSSe2.7z - full Python 3.9 with headers, libs and defs. Root folder was C:\

tcl.7z - compiled TCL/TK

openssl-3.1.0-win32-dev-xpmod-sse.7z, openssl-3.1.0-win32-xpmod-sse.7z - are development and binary OpenSSL from
https://rwijnsma.home.xs4all.nl/files/openssl/

cryptography-3.4.8.7z - lastest cryptography for XP (without RUST)

Best regards

Edited yesterday at 03:34 PM by cmalex

[user57]

i do not know python but if its like a normal compiler it searches for a main() or winmain(), the next error talks something about __main__ 

 

looking these 2 lines might be of interests it seems to be some kind of call

"PyInstaller.__main__"

a import useally is a function that a modules exports (such as a dll (or dllmain()) or in case of executable winmain)

 

combined it says in "PyInstaller" + "__main__" was not found or pyinstaller was not reconized as "package" 

 

File "C:\Users\Admin\Documents\GitHub\xl-converter\misc\pyinstaller\PyInstaller.py", line 15, in <module> from PyInstaller.__main__ import run

 "ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'PyInstaller.__main__'; 'PyInstaller' is not a package [end of output]"

 

one way i could think of this is happening is that winver in the peheader is set to 6 or higher (6 are vista and 10) in this case a executable caller (such as createprocess) cant open the module - also from consideration

the answer from compilers can sometimes not be very precise, it also could be a small type error/syntax error near that area aka PyInstaller at spot __main__

 

however i do not know the syntax in python 

 

[cmalex]

Greetings.

>"ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'PyInstaller.__main__'; 'PyInstaller' is not a package [end of output]"

There is some issues with python*._pth files with paths for searching modules.

Please try to add it or remove it ;-)

Best regards.

Edited 15 hours ago by cmalex

[nicolaasjan]

@cmalex

Thanks again for your efforts to keep Python alive on vintage operating systems!

Using your latest Python 3.9 environment, I successfully updated the included yt-dlp via pip to the Nightly build:

pip install -U --pre "yt-dlp[default]"

Now I get the warning:

Quote

Deprecated Feature: Support for Python version 3.9 has been deprecated. Please update to Python 3.10 or above

`yt-dlp -v` output:

[debug] Command-line config: ['-v']
[debug] User config "C:\Documents and Settings\Nico\Application Data\yt-dlp\config.txt": ['--rm-cache-dir', '--console-title', '--add-metadata', '--embed-thumbnail', '--convert-thumbnails', 'jpg', '--ppa', 'ffmpeg:-metadata synopsis=""', '-o', '~/Bureaublad/%(title)s.%(ext)s', '-S', 'res:720,vcodec:h264,acodec:mp4a', '--sponsorblock-remove', 'all']
Deprecated Feature: Support for Python version 3.9 has been deprecated. Please update to Python 3.10 or above
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs utf-8, pref cp1252, out cp1252 (No VT), error cp1252 (No VT), screen cp1252 (No VT)
[debug] yt-dlp version nightly@2025.07.31.233123 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds [71f30921a] (pip)
[debug] Python 3.9.13 (CPython x86 32bit) - Windows-XP-5.1.2600-SP3 (OpenSSL 1.1.1i  8 Dec 2020)
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-116828-g6aafe61-Reino (fdk,setts), ffprobe N-116828-g6aafe61-Reino, phantomjs 1.9.8
[debug] Optional libraries: Cryptodome-3.23.0, brotli-1.1.0, certifi-2025.07.14, mutagen-1.47.0, requests-2.32.4, sqlite3-3.37.2, urllib3-2.5.0, websockets-15.0.1
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[debug] Request Handlers: urllib, requests, websockets
[debug] Plugin directories: none
[debug] Loaded 1858 extractors
Removing cache dir C:\Documents and Settings\Nico/.cache\yt-dlp ..

Python 3.9 support will be fully dropped in October 2025 (#13861). 

See also #13858.

Is it feasible for you to port Python 3.10 or even 3.11 to Windows XP?

I'm sure the community here would be very grateful if you succeeded.

Edited 12 hours ago by nicolaasjan