How to set up Setuptools for Python on Windows?

Setuptools is a package development process library that is designed to make packaging Python projects easier by boosting the standard distutils (distribution utilities) library of Python. 

• It includes Python package and module definitions
• It includes distribution package metadata
• It includes test hooks
• It includes project installation
• It also includes platform-specific details
• It supports Python3.

In this article, we will learn how to install Setuptools for Python on Windows.

Installing Setuptools on Windows 

Method 1: Using pip to install Setuptools Package

Follow the below steps to install the Setuptools package on Windows using pip:

Step 1: Install the latest or current version of Python3 in Windows.

Step 2: Now check if pip and python are correctly installed in your system using the following commands.

python –version

pip –version

Step 3: Upgrade pip to the latest version to avoid errors during installation.

pip install –upgrade pip

Step 4: Enter the following command in the command prompt to install Setuptools using pip.

pip install setuptools

Method 2: Using setup.py to install Setuptools

Follow the below steps to install the Setuptools on Windows using the setup.py file:

Step 1: Download the latest source package of Setuptools for Python3 from here.

curl https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/9b/be/13f54335c7dba713b0e97e11e7a41db3df4a85073d6c5a6e7f6468b22ee2/setuptools-60.2.0.tar.gz > setuptools-60.2.0.tar.gz

Step 2: Extract the downloaded package using the given command.

tar -xzvf setuptools-60.2.0.tar.gz

Step 3: Go to the setuptools-60.2.0 folder and enter the following command to install the package.

cd setuptools-60.2.0

python setup.py install

Verifying Setuptools installation on Windows

Make the following import in your Python terminal to verify if the installation of the Setuptools package has been done properly:

import setuptools 

If there is any error while importing the module then the Setuptools package is not installed properly.