How do I set up Setuptools for Python 2.6 on Windows?

Question

Is there any way to install Setuptools for Python 2.6 in Windows without having an exe installer?

There isn't one built at the moment, and the maintainer of Setuptools has stated that it will probably be a while before he'll get to it.

Does anyone know of a way to install it anyway?

Answer 1

First Option - Online Installation (i.e. remaining connected to the Internet during the entire installation process):

1. Download setuptools-0.6c9.tar.gz
2. Use 7-zip to extract it to a folder(directory) outside your Windows Python installation folder
3. Go the folder (refer step 2) and run ez_setup.py from the corresponding dos (command) prompt
4. Ensure that your PATH includes the appropriate C:\Python2X\Scripts directory

Second Option:

1. Download setuptools-0.6c9.tar.gz
2. Download setuptools-0.6c9-py2.6.egg to a folder(directory) outside your Windows Python installation folder
3. Use 7-zip to extract ez_setup.py in the same folder as setuptools-0.6c9-py2.6.egg
4. Go to the corresponding dos prompt and run python ez_setup.py setuptools-0.6c9-py2.6.egg from the command prompt
5. Ensure that your PATH includes the appropriate C:\Python2X\Scripts directory

Third Option (assuming that you have Visual Studio 2005 or MinGW on your machine)

1. Download setuptools-0.6c9.tar.gz
2. Use 7-zip to extract it to a folder(directory) outside your Windows Python installation folder
3. Go the folder (refer step 2) and run python setup.py install from the corresponding dos (command) prompt

Please provide feedback.

Answer 2

You could download and run http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py. This will download and install setuptools.

[update]

This script no longer works - the version of setuptools the it downloads is not at the URI specified in ez_setup.py -navigate to http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.7/s/setuptools/ for the latest version - the script also does some md5 checking, I haven't looked into it any further.