Well, I'm going to go ahead and apologize for sending this off-topic message here, but I just don't know who else to ask.  I tried the Python forums - no response.  I tried the general Python mailing list - no useful info or no response.  I don't know whether my problem is a silly mistake on my part or some weird problem that only a few people may know how to solve (thus the lack of response I'm getting).  However, the problem is a real show-stopper for me.  I can't use a lot of libraries or get anything done because of it....

Problem:
I cannot get libxml2, libxslt, or libtidy to work -- all use external C programs or dlls that are linked into a python library.

All of these libraries return an error that they do not exist (meaning they cannot find the exe or dll).

I go through the process of installing the Python library using easy_install; that works fine.  Then, I install the pre-compiled Windows binaries and/or dlls... but it never works....

* First, off, I never know where to install the pre-compiled binaries.  There instructions never say exactly, but seem to assume I know what to do with the binaries for libxml2, libxslt, and libtidy.
* I tried copying the exe and/or dlls to Python, Python\Lib, and Python\Dll  ... none worked.
* import libxml2, import libxslt, and import libtidy do not work.  For example for libtidy, I get:
import tidy
OSError: Couldn't find libtidy, please make sure it is installed.
* Note: Python\ and Python\Scripts are both part of my OS PATH variable if that matters

My questions.
What is the proper way to setup/install pre-compiled Windows binaries so that they will work with the Python libraries?

What are all the steps?

Is there some things I can do to help diagnose problems?

Could the problem be something different or trivial that I overlooked?

Again, sorry for bringing the problem here... can anyone recommend places that would be good to ask these kinds of questions?

Unfortunately, I'm not primarily a Windows developer and haven't had
the time to hack and/or recompile tidy.dll from source and release a
new distribution, which I think is what will be required. Do you have
any MSVC-fu?

If your application is not required to be fast, you could call
tidy.exe and pass it command-line parameters, using the subprocess or
commands module.

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I finally have libtidy working=2C although I have no idea why the solution =
works and the old method does not.
=20
Essentially=2C I need a special compiled version of libtidy.  Whichever win=
dows dll I was using did not work for some reason.
=20
I spent sevral hours hacking away at the libtidy and ctypes python modules =
to narrow down the cause of the problem. I finally found out that it could =
not recognize the dll -- it said it was not a valid Win3d app or whatever. =
 The solution?
=20
I needed the x64 dll from here:
http://int64.org/projects/tidy-binaries/
=20
This makes me wonder if maybe some of the other libraries have similar majo=
r incompatability or quirkiness to them.
=20
=20

I noticed that it was not recognizing the dll after hacking tidylib and ctypes.

Then I noticed that the binaries do not list Vista (if that matters).

So, I gave a different dll a try.

It might be worth asking the person who compiled the binaries why this might be a problem for people, since he'll know more about it.

P.S.  I've sent you a private email to continue discussing... :)