pip install cx_freeze: "command 'cl.exe' failed: No such file or directory"

Question

I´m on Windows 7, and i have Python 3.5.1 installed.

I want to create executables from Python scripts.

What i did so far:

I ran pip install cx_freeze and i got the Unable to find vcvarsall.bat error.

There @Cody Piersall linked to Steve Dowers blog entry.

From there i downloaded and installed the Visual C++ Build Tools 2015.

Now i have these *Microsoft Visual C++ ** ´es installed: Screenshot.

And i have the vcvars* batches installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\:

• vcvarsall.bat
• bin\vcvars32.bat
• bin\amd64\vcvars64.bat.
• etc

My prettyprinted PATH is:

C:\run\Python_3_5\Scripts\;
C:\run\Python_3_5\;
C:\Windows\system32;
C:\Windows;
C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;
C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;
C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x86;
C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x64;
C:\run\Haskell-Platform\lib\extralibs\bin;
C:\run\Haskell-Platform\bin;
C:\Users\Nils-Hero\AppData\Roaming\cabal\bin;
C:\run\Haskell-Platform\mingw\bin;
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Windows Performance Toolkit\;
C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x64;

Problem:

When i now rerun pip install cx_freeze, it doesn´t find a file cl.exe:

Collecting cx_freeze
  Using cached cx_Freeze-4.3.4.tar.gz
Installing collected packages: cx-freeze
  Running setup.py install for cx-freeze ... error
    Complete output from command c:\run\python_3_5\python.exe -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='C:\\Users\\NILS-H~1\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\pip-build-9lhua9e9\\cx-freeze\\setup.py'
;exec(compile(getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__).read().replace('\r\n', '\n'), __file__, 'exec'))" install --record C:\Users\NILS-H~1\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-bb2i8jxv-record\install-re
cord.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile:
    adding base module named _bootlocale
    adding base module named _collections_abc
    adding base module named _compression
    ...
    ... adding a lot more base modules  ...
    ...
    running install
    running build
    running build_py
    creating build\lib.win-amd64-3.5
    creating build\lib.win-amd64-3.5\cx_Freeze
    copying cx_Freeze\common.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.5\cx_Freeze
    copying cx_Freeze\dist.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.5\cx_Freeze
    ...
    ... creating and copying a lot more things ...
    ...
    running build_ext
    building 'cx_Freeze.util' extension
    creating build\temp.win-amd64-3.5\Release
    creating build\temp.win-amd64-3.5\Release\source
    cl.exe /c /nologo /Ox /W3 /GL /DNDEBUG /MT -Ic:\run\python_3_5\include -Ic:\run\python_3_5\include /Tcsource/util.c /Fobuild\temp.win-amd64-3.5\Release\source/util.obj
    error: command 'cl.exe' failed: No such file or directory

    ----------------------------------------
Command "c:\run\python_3_5\python.exe -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='C:\\Users\\NILS-H~1\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\pip-build-9lhua9e9\\cx-freeze\\setup.py';exec(compile(getattr(to
kenize, 'open', open)(__file__).read().replace('\r\n', '\n'), __file__, 'exec'))" install --record C:\Users\NILS-H~1\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-bb2i8jxv-record\install-record.txt --single-versio
n-externally-managed --compile" failed with error code 1 in C:\Users\NILS-H~1\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-9lhua9e9\cx-freeze\

This executable is under C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\bin\ and also in the subfolders.

I guess pip can´t find it because these paths are not on my PATH, but why wouldn´t that Visual C++ Build Tools 2015 installer add them? I´m scared to hand-tweak a 800MB sized, 50 minutes lasting installation. So i´ll better ask here first.

Answer 1

Ok. Solved.

I successfully installed cx_freeze from a wheel according to the answer to this Question.

But version 4.3.4 from the Gohlke site has a bug under Python 3.5 (ImportError: No module named '_frozen_importlib_external'). We have to wait until the cx_freeze author releases the next version of cx_freeze (which seems to be soon).

Meanwhile, Sebastian Krause was so kind to create some wheels from the latest code from repo, cx_freeze 5.0, and these wheels install and run without errors in my tests.