title: Can I use VS2005 to build extensions for a Python system built with VS2003
body: <p><a href="http://rdflib.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">RDFLib</a> needs C extensions to be compiled to install on ActiveState Python 2.5; as far as I can tell, there's no binary installer anywhere obvious on the web.  On attempting to install with <code>python setup.py install</code>, it produces the following message:</p>
  
  <p><code>error: Python was built with Visual Studio 2003;</code><br>
  <code>extensions must be built with a compiler than can generate compatible binaries.</code><br>
  <code>Visual Studio 2003 was not found on this system. If you have Cygwin installed,</code><br>
  <code>you can try compiling with MingW32, by passing "-c mingw32" to setup.py.</code></p>
  
  <p>There are <a href="http://boodebr.org/main/python/build-windows-extensions" rel="nofollow noreferrer">various</a> <a href="http://isegserv.itd.rl.ac.uk/blogs/alistair/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">resources</a> on the web about configuring a compiler for distutils that discuss using MinGW, although I haven't got this to work yet.  As an alternative I have VS2005.  </p>
  
  <p>Can anyone categorically tell me whether you can use the C compiler in VS2005 to build Python extension modules for a VS2003 compiled Python (in this case ActiveState Python 2.5).  If this is possible, what configuration is needed?</p>