Error installing and running pywin32 2.7

Question

I am coming up with a couple errors after installing:

pywin32-217.win32-py2.7

I have recently upgraded ArcGIS to 10.1 and it uses Python 2.7 (as opposed to 2.6 that came with ArcGIS 10.0)

When I run the installer on a Windows 7 64 bit, it installs, but throws the following message:

close failed in file object destructor:

sys.excepthook is missing

lost sys.stderr

I had a simple python script to print to a printer from a folder containing .pdf files which worked before my upgrade

import arcpy, glob, win32api, os

pdfLoc = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(0)

try:
    copies = int(arcpy.GetParameter(1))
except:
    copies = 1

for pdfname in glob.glob(os.path.join(pdfLoc, "*.pdf")):
    fullpath = os.path.join(pdfLoc, pdfname)
    for copy in range(copies):
        win32api.ShellExecute(0, "print", pdfname, None, ".", 0)

del fullpath
del pdfname
del pdfLoc

Now when I run the script, I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "Z:\ESRI\Python\Solstice_Tools_Scripts\Printer_Tools\Batch_Print_From_PDF_Only\BatchprintFromPDFOnly_Test.py", line 34, in win32api.ShellExecute(0, "print", pdfname, None, ".", 0) error: (31, 'ShellExecute', 'A device attached to the system is not functioning.')

Failed to execute (BatchPrintFromPDFOnly2).

I've been googling around and have tried a few solutions, like running the executable in troubleshooting mode, but the error persists. Can anyone suggest what may cause this?

As a side note, I upgraded 4 computers in my company to the new version of python and ArcGIS, and only one of them is throwing this error. The rest work fine.

Thanks, Mike

Solution 1

I had the same problem, but solved it a bit differently. Instead of creating another admin account, I was able to execute the pywin32-217.win32-py2.7.exe successfully from a command prompt that I started with Run as Administrator.

Solution 2

An alternate solution is what Mark Hammond suggests on the pywin32 mailing list:

This seems to happen if User Access Control (UAC) is disabled - is it disabled for you?

Either way, try running "python scripts\pywin32_postinstall.py -install" from the root of the install directory and things should finish registering - that should fix the next error you see.

This worked fine for me.

Solution 3

You must not install as administrator, see this bug report:

This is maybe because you are running Windows under the "Administrator" account and anything you normally run is equal to a "run as Administrator"

And paradoxically running the installation of pywin32 on Windows 7 as Administrator causes this error.

So a workaround is to create another admin account

net user Admin /add
net user Admin
net localgroup Administrators Admin /add

and then run the pywin32 installation with

runas /user:Admin pywin32-217.win32-py2.7.exe

Solution 4

None of the solutions helped me (Sitting on Windows 10).

But I finally got it fixed when I ran c:\python27\scripts\pywin32_postinstall.py -install

After installation you can try to run the installer again just to be sure, worked for me.

Solution 5

Running from a PowerShell command as admin worked for me on Windows 10, where as a Command line prompt (as admin) failed.

View more solutions

Comments

[Thomas K]

If it's only a problem on one computer, is it simple to uninstall/reinstall on that machine?

[Mike]

@ Thomas. I've tried to uninstall multiple times. Unfortunately, the issue still persists.

[mike]

worked for me too, just have to setup a password for the account (can be done from computer management).

[Roney Michael]

This worked and it seems to be a much easier solution. Kudos!

[Flak DiNenno]

Same worked for me. I also made sure that my path variables PYTHONPATH=D:\Python27 and PYTHONPATH=D:\Python27\Scripts were set properly.

[Sun Wukong]

Run this post-install script worked for me, as the "Run as Administrator" tip had failed. Thx

[Marcel Wilson]

Run as Admin worked for me as well. I'd be curious to understand why.

[Chiwda]

Yup! This worked perfectly - just don't forget to set the password or you may get the error: "1327: Logon failure: user account restriction. Possible reasons are blank passwords not allowed, logon hour restrictions, or a policy restriction has been enforced." Haha, guess how I know this... :-)

[Chiwda]

Oh, and this may seem obvious, but remember your pywin file may not be the same so the last line may differ. For example, mine was: runas /user:Admin pywin32-219.win-amd64-py2.7.exe

[Atiq Rahman]

Running the exe as admin didn't work for me. But as he said starting a command prompt as admin and then running the pywin32 from there worked!! Strange! Mine is Windows 8.1, python 2.7.9 64 bit

[evt]

This also worked for me, whereas directly running the exe in admin did not (same as atique).

[maxisam]

That is AMAZING. I actually didn't login as Administrator but still got this error. However, once I use runas with my current account, it works.

[Kay Zed]

Same problem as asker and this solves it for pywin32-220.win32-py2.7

[Aminah Nuraini]

I got ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified module could not be found because of that

[Aminah Nuraini]

I am using Windows 10 too btw. I didn't get this problem in the previous versions of Windows

[hydroman]

ran c:\python27\scripts\pywin32_postinstall.py -install what do you mean by this?

[Conrad Selig]

Same thing here, if default app is notepad instead of notepad++ Tim's script works just fine.