How to install win32com module in a virtualenv?
python, pywin32, virtualenv
Solution
UPDATE 2016
There is now a version of pywin32 on PyPI that can be installed with pip. It is called `pypiwin32`, and it installs the package using the binary `wheel` format.
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pypiwin32
pip install pypiwin32
That will work in a virtualenv, or with tox, etc.
Below this line is my previous old answer. That is now outdated information.
OLD ANSWER - OUTDATED. Modern versions of virtualenv default to --no-site-packages. That means that not having access to global site-packages is now the default behavior. Sadly, (as of July 2014) you can not pip install pywin32 in to your virtualenv. (here's the bug report) If you want to get pywin32 running inside a virtualenv, activate the virtualenv and use easy_install and the pywin32 installer exe file. For example easy_install "C:\Path\To\Downloads\pywin32-219.win32-py3.4.exe"
Related question
Problem
I have installed both `virtualenv` and `pywin32` on my Windows 7 64-bit laptop, and each of them seems to work, but not with each other. More specifically, if a virtualenv is active, then running `import win32com.client` in a python interactive shell fails with `No module named win32com.client`. The same expression succeeds, however, if no virtualenv is active. When I try to install `pywin32` with `pip` (which is how I normally install modules when a virtualenv is active), I get the error: ``` Could not find any downloads that satisfy the requirement pywin32 No distributions at all found for pywin32 ``` ...even though `pywin32` is one of the modules listed in the output of ``` pip search pywin32 ``` Therefore, to install `pywin32` at all I had to install it using an *.exe installer downloaded from SourceForge. Is there any way to install `pywin32` within a virtualenv?