Python3.5 - pip install error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat

Question

Python v3.5, Windows 7 64-bit, IDE: PyCharm Version: 4.5.4 Build: 141.2569

Situation: When trying to install a module called PyAutoGUI with pip I came across a "Unable to find vcvarsall.bat" error. Trying to install from the command prompt ends up giving the same error. Although the error seems to be quite commonplace, with the solution being downloading the module from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/, I did not find the module I was looking for there.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Error:

Collecting PyAutoGUI
  Downloading PyAutoGUI-0.9.31.zip (55kB)
Collecting pymsgbox (from PyAutoGUI)
  Downloading PyMsgBox-1.0.3.zip
Collecting PyTweening>=1.0.1 (from PyAutoGUI)
  Downloading PyTweening-1.0.2.zip
Collecting Pillow (from PyAutoGUI)
  Downloading Pillow-2.9.0.tar.gz (9.3MB)
Collecting pyscreeze (from PyAutoGUI)
  Downloading PyScreeze-0.1.7.zip
Installing collected packages: pymsgbox, PyTweening, Pillow, pyscreeze, PyAutoGUI
  Running setup.py install for pymsgbox
  Running setup.py install for PyTweening
  Running setup.py install for Pillow
    Complete output from command C:\Users\Marx\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python35-32\python.exe -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='C:\\Users\\Marx\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\pycharm-packaging0.tmp\\Pillow\\setup.py';exec(compile(getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__).read().replace('\r\n', '\n'), __file__, 'exec'))" install --record C:\Users\Marx\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-iwse_fey-record\install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile:
    Single threaded build, not installing mp_compile: 4 processes
    running install
    running build
    running build_py
    creating build
    creating build\lib.win32-3.5
    creating build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\BdfFontFile.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\BmpImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\BufrStubImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ContainerIO.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\CurImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\DcxImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\EpsImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ExifTags.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\features.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\FitsStubImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\FliImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\FontFile.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\FpxImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\GbrImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\GdImageFile.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\GifImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\GimpGradientFile.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\GimpPaletteFile.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\GribStubImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\Hdf5StubImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\IcnsImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\IcoImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\Image.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageChops.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageCms.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageColor.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageDraw.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageDraw2.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageEnhance.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageFile.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageFileIO.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageFilter.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageFont.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageGrab.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageMath.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageMode.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageMorph.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageOps.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImagePalette.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImagePath.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageQt.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageSequence.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageShow.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageStat.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageTk.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageTransform.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImageWin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\ImtImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\IptcImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\Jpeg2KImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\JpegImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\JpegPresets.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\McIdasImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\MicImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\MpegImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\MpoImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\MspImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\OleFileIO.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PaletteFile.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PalmImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PcdImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PcfFontFile.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PcxImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PdfImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PixarImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PngImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PpmImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PsdImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PSDraw.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\PyAccess.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\SgiImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\SpiderImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\SunImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\TarIO.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\TgaImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\TiffImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\TiffTags.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\WalImageFile.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\WebPImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\WmfImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\XbmImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\XpmImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\XVThumbImagePlugin.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\_binary.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\_util.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    copying PIL\__init__.py -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    running egg_info
    writing top-level names to Pillow.egg-info\top_level.txt
    writing dependency_links to Pillow.egg-info\dependency_links.txt
    writing Pillow.egg-info\PKG-INFO
    warning: manifest_maker: standard file '-c' not found

    reading manifest file 'Pillow.egg-info\SOURCES.txt'
    reading manifest template 'MANIFEST.in'
    writing manifest file 'Pillow.egg-info\SOURCES.txt'
    copying PIL\OleFileIO-README.md -> build\lib.win32-3.5\PIL
    warning: build_py: byte-compiling is disabled, skipping.

    running build_ext
    building 'PIL._imaging' extension
    error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat

----------------------------------------

Answer 1

I ran into similar problem with packages like cx_Oracle and pysftp. This is what worked for me:

1. Install an appropriate version of c++ compiler. I am using the following Python interpreter, Python 3.5.0 (v3.5.0:374f501f4567, Sep 13 2015, 02:16:59) [MSC v.1900 32 bit (Intel)] on win32. I installed Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition. (thanks to @Colonel Panic)

2. Rerun the pip for your target package.

Happy coding!!

Reference:

• What version of Visual Studio is Python on my computer compiled with?
• Visual Studio 205 download link

Answer 2

If you read your error message carefully, you can see that the error actually occurs when trying to install pillow. pillow does have a version available on Gohlke's website that you linked to. So try installing pillow from there, then do your pip install pyautogui and see if it works.

Some Python packages have parts that are written in C. To use these, you either need a C compiler or you need a Windows installer for the package (like those provided on Gohlke's site). It appears that PyAutoGUI does not require compilation, but it requires Pillow, which does require compilation. So you may be able to get it to work by installing Pillow separately. (You may get the error message again because the same problem may exist for another dependency, so you may have to repeat this process, installing other libs until you have enough installed that pip will work.)