setuptools 0.6c10 is released with an alternate fix for this issue, that uses a
single .exe for both 32/64 bits (by not using LoadLibrary on the target Python).
 Please re-open if this doesn't resolve the issue.  Thanks!

I have committed this patch with the appropriate files in the 0.6 maintenance
branch of distribute (the successor to setuptools).
Bitbucket link: http://bitbucket.org/tarek/distribute/overview/

There is a bootstrapper script that fetches and installs distribute and replaces
any existing setuptools installation with a fake package.
Script link: http://nightly.ziade.org/distribute_setup_dev.py

We are about to release v0.8.2 very soon, unless someone comes up with an urgent
problem.

Because the patch code is not in the SCM installing using ez_setup.py still fails.

The package worked and now I would like to see this included in the normal
distribution package. This will spare others time.

I've put a zip of the source for setuptools-0.6c9 with two patches, one for
issue2 (this issue) and another for issue64. You can grab it at
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/54081/setuptools-0.6c9_issue2_issue64.zip . In
addition to the patches, I've renamed the version to
"setuptools-0.6c9_issue2_issue64", so it will install as separate from other
builds. Let me know if this doesn't work for you.

I'm having no joy installing the patch [my knowledge of this is practically
non-existent]. Is there any chance that anyone could host the patched source so
I can get hold of it? Aprreciate this is a big ask. My email is jules at
js3d.co.uk. many thanks.

Another nod of agreement from me. This needs to be done ASAP, non-64 bit windows
support is a real pain.

I confirm this is very important, and should be solved asap.

Current bug does prevent installation of all Python packages that are using
setuptools on Windows x64. 

I confirm that patch v2 is working (tested on Windows 7 x64) and we should
commit this to the trunk ASAP and also to current released version (0.6c9).

Also, I consider this issue critical because it does make the product unusable
for a big amount of users without any workarounds.

I do not have commit access, so we need help from somebody that does.

In addition we should release a new version to
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools that will include this patch.

I realized my initial patch didn't include the changes to easy_install.py to
accommodate the new exe files.  This v2 patch does.

Here's a patch that enables building the gui and cli.exe files on Visual Studio
2008.  I found that if I used the WinMain entry point, another command-window
would open during the spawnv, so I updated the entry point.  This may cause
problems with gui.exe which I have not tested.

The added batch file "msvc-build-launcher.cmd" will compile 32- and 64-bit
versions of each executable.

I'll be attaching the files I built.  They're more than 10x the size of the
other files, so any suggestions on making them smaller would be appreciated.

A less than perfect workaround is to use 'easy_install-script.py' instead of the
executable.  I believe using the script requires that the .py file extension is
associated with the appropriate python installation, or that the script be run
explicitly from the correct Python installation.  e.g.
"C:\Program Files\Python26\Python.exe" "C:\Program
Files\Python26\Scripts\easy_install-script.py" <your options>

Not the easiest workaround, but at least enough to get by until someone has time
to build a 64-bit version of setuptools.

This problem is causing me a lot of issues. My knowledge of compilers is basic
to say the least, but I do have access to 64bit windows compilers and can help
out if someone can give me some pointers as to how to do it. I've tried mucking
around with launcher.h but it seems very gcc specific, and I've no idea of how
to get it to work with cl.exe.

Supporting this will probably require somebody with a 64-bit windows to do
builds, or else provide a cross-compile procedure.  There will also need to be
some sort of patch to handle using two versions of the .exe wrappers.  Either
that, or somebody will need to come up with a way other than LoadLibraryEx to
verify the executability of the Python executable.  (Note that this would
probably also fix the outstanding issue where the .exe wrappers don't work on
Vista without admin privs, probably because of the same LoadLibraryEx call.)

As I reported in
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2008-April/009398.html
easy_install on a 64 bits Python on a 64 bits Windows is broken in that it gives
the following error:

Cannot find Python executable C:\Python25\python.exe

I believe that due to cli.exe and gui.exe (built from launcher.c) being 32-bits
executables they are trying to use 32-bit specific calls which fail on a 64 bits
Windows.
As Mark Hammond said in
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2008-May/009462.html: "I suspect
that the issue is that a 32bit cli.exe or gui.exe is attempting to LoadLibrary a
64bit executable and failing (specifically, loadable_exe() in launcher.c)"