On my Windows 7 installation mimetypes.py in read_windows_registry _winreg.OpenKey can throw a TypeError exception which is not handled and interrupts the execution.

To fix it I added:
except TypeError:
    continue

To reproduce it I just need to run te following:
c:\python27\python -c "import mimetypes; mimetypes.init()"

This error is obviously due to the content of my registry.
The subkeyname causing issues have names like: 
{hexid-hexid-hexid-hexid-hexid}

Is this a duplicate of issue 9291?

I don't think so.
Here is the traceback btw:
  File "setup.py", line 18, in <module>
    exec(init_file.read(), command_ns)
  File "<string>", line 11, in <module>
  File "c:\users\sl\appdata\local\temp\tmpoaaddk\setuptools-12.0.5\setuptools\__init__.py", line 11, in <module>
    from setuptools.extension import Extension
  File "c:\users\sl\appdata\local\temp\tmpoaaddk\setuptools-12.0.5\setuptools\extension.py", line 8, in <module>
    from .dist import _get_unpatched
  File "c:\users\sl\appdata\local\temp\tmpoaaddk\setuptools-12.0.5\setuptools\dist.py", line 16, in <module>
    from setuptools.depends import Require
  File "c:\users\sl\appdata\local\temp\tmpoaaddk\setuptools-12.0.5\setuptools\depends.py", line 6, in <module>
    from setuptools import compat
  File "c:\users\sl\appdata\local\temp\tmpoaaddk\setuptools-12.0.5\setuptools\compat.py", line 19, in <module>
    from SimpleHTTPServer import SimpleHTTPRequestHandler
  File "C:\Python27\lib\SimpleHTTPServer.py", line 27, in <module>
    class SimpleHTTPRequestHandler(BaseHTTPServer.BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
  File "C:\Python27\lib\SimpleHTTPServer.py", line 214, in SimpleHTTPRequestHandler
    mimetypes.init() # try to read system mime.types
  File "C:\Python27\lib\mimetypes.py", line 351, in init
    db.read_windows_registry()
  File "C:\Python27\lib\mimetypes.py", line 254, in read_windows_registry
    with _winreg.OpenKey(hkcr, subkeyname) as subkey:
TypeError: must be string without null bytes or None, not str
Something went wrong during the installation.

Definitely a dup, though I don't have the number handy. There's a patch on the other issue waiting for a mimetypes maintainer to step up.

It's right there on my to-do list which is, unfortunately, not getting 
any shorter.

TJG

On 01/02/2015 19:10, Steve Dower wrote:
>
> Steve Dower added the comment:
>
> Definitely a dup, though I don't have the number handy. There's a patch on the other issue waiting for a mimetypes maintainer to step up.
>
> ----------
>
> _______________________________________
> Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org>
> <http://bugs.python.org/issue23371>
> _______________________________________
>

This is a duplicate of issue 22028 (fixed in 2.7 in 7c4c4e43c452).