pip install works, setuptools doesn't (Windows Python 3.6.8)

[fdav10]

I'm finding that installing pywin32 using pip succeeds whereas listing it as a dependency using the install_requires argument to setup in a setup.py file fails. This is on Windows 10 using Python 3.6.8 64 bit and pywin32==224.

My steps:

Pip install

1. Set up an empty virtual env
2. pip install pywin32
3. python -c "import win32api"

Results in no output - i.e. successful imoprt

Setuptools

1. Set up another fresh virtualenv
2. create a minimal setup.py consisting of:

from setuptools import setup

setup(name='testpackage',
      version=1,
      install_requires=[
          "pywin32",
      ])

3. at shell run python setup.py install
4. python -c "import win32api"
5. On my machine this results in

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'win32api'

[macginitie]

when I try "pip install pywin32" I get:
Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pywin32 (from versions: )
No matching distribution found for pywin32

[Aareon]

Looks suspiciously like a circular dependency issue

[shriharshmishra]

when I try "pip install pywin32" I get:
Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement pywin32 (from versions: )
No matching distribution found for pywin32

I am also facing similar issue when running -
pip install -r requirements.txt and my requirement.txt contains pywin32==224

[Avasam]

3. at shell run python setup.py install

Note to readers that python setup.py and the use of setup.py as a command line tool are deprecated. pywin32 itself needs to move away from it. #2208

[Avasam]

@fdav10 Due to many changes in the Python packaging ecosystem and improvements to pywin32's own installation, could you try again using:

• the latest pip
• latest setuptools
• Python>=3.8
• pywin32 >= 226 (but preferably latest)

---

@shriharshmishra & @macginitie Could you also make sure you are trying to install from a Windows machine ?