I am using Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and had to setup M2Crypto required for a Python program that I am writing in Python 2.7 (32-bit). After hours of trying and searching, I finally managed to get it installed and working.

Here are some of the things that I tried, please move on to “How I managed to get it to work” if you don’t want to go through boring “What I tried” stuff.

What I tried:
First of all, I tried to install M2Crypto via pip. I got an error saying that swig.exe was not found, so I downloaded copy of swigwin and extracted it, then added the directory to system PATH. I installed easy_install (setuptools), opened the terminal and changed dir to Python27\Scripts and installed pip (easy_install pip). Then, I tried to install M2Crypto using pip:

pip install M2Crypto

Unfortunately, I got the following error:

SWIG\_m2crypto.i(31) : Error: Unable to find ‘openssl\opensslv.h’

SWIG\_m2crypto.i(45) : Error: Unable to find ‘openssl\safestack.h’

SWIG\_evp.i(12) : Error: Unable to find ‘openssl\opensslconf.h’

SWIG\_ec.i(7) : Error: Unable to find ‘openssl\opensslconf.h’

error: command ‘swig.exe’ failed with exit status 1

So, I downloaded openssl source files and copied the include directory to swig_dir/lib, then I got errors that from swig. I also tried giving build_dist parameter to setup.py but in vain. I was thinking of compiling openssl myself, but I figured that I would require Visual Studio (which I do not have). I thought of using MingW, but turns out you need to compile Python with MingW for it to work. I almost gave up on this, but I found that some developers had contributed build of OpenSSL and M2Crypto, so that I could just install them. Move on to next section to do it yourself.

How I managed to get it to work
I downloaded pre-built binaries of M2Crypto built against OpenSSL 1.0 from M2Crypto Wiki. The one that I downloaded is M2Crypto-0.21.1.win32-py2.7.msi. Then, I set it up. It detected my Python installation and installed the package. However, when I ran the Python script, I got the following error:

import __m2crypto
ImportError: DLL load failed

I don’t know if it was because I did not restart my computer after installation or if OpenSSL dlls were missing, in either case, you may want to install Win32 OpenSSL V1 Light and install it and it should work.

Hope this helps.

I am just starting with Python 3 on Windows and I wanted to install easy_install and/or pip for installing other available packages easily. However, I found that setuptools setup for Python 3.3.2 (the version I am using) is not available.

I discovered distribute, a fork of setuptools, which provides easy_install. I downloaded source from Python Package page for distribute and extracted it. In the elevated command prompt (cmd->Run as Administrator), I changed to extracted directory and then ran distribute_setup.py. Then, easy_install was successfully installed in Python_Directory\Scripts. Then, I could install pip by changing directory to Scripts and running the following:

easy_install pip

Hope this helps.

I had played a great indie game a few years back. It was called Street Bike Fury from S64 Games. The game is no longer being developed because of death of the developer. I had tried to make this game run earlier but failed. However, I have found a way now and I would like to share that.

After some research, I found that the game was developed using Game Maker 6. The programs made in this only run in Windows XP and not in Windows 7 and Windows Vista. However, in YoYoGames Wiki, there is a software that can fix this. First download and setup Street Bike Fury from official download page. Then, download the Game Maker Conversion Program from here. Then setup the game but don’t launch it. Use the GM_Convert_Game and patch the exe. Then you will be able to run it.

Hope this helps.

When trying to update Windows 7 Ultimate to Service Pack 1 using Windows Update, I got error: 0x800F0A12. I have two hard disks of which one has Fedora 15 and the other has Windows 7, the one with Fedora 15 had Grub installed. I disconnected the other hard disk and tried it again and the issue was resolved. If you have single hard disk with some other OS installed, you may face similar error which is a little more difficult to solve. Before performing this, make sure to back up your important data and have recovery tools handy. Please proceed at your own risk.

To solve the issue, you have to set the partition with Windows 7 as active using Disk Management (Win+R: diskmgmt.msc) by right clicking the partition and selecting “Mark Partition as Active”. After the update has been installed, make sure to set your other partition which has the boot loader as active.

Firebug is not officially compatible with Firefox 6 since as of this writing, Firefox 6 is on early alphas. However, forcing compatibility works with it. For that, just install Nightly Tester Tools addon and in Tools>Nightly Tester Tools, check “Force Addon Compatibility” and restart Firefox. Now, you will be able to install and use Firebug.

I am using Netbeans 6.9.1 on Windows 7 with XAMPP 1.7.4 installed. I wanted to enable step debugging for PHP like I do in my PC with Fedora (see here for Netbeans PHP step debugging for Fedora). To do that, I had to follow the following steps:

Edit the php.ini file (xampp\php\php.ini) in a text editor to uncomment (remove leading semicolon the following lines:

zend_extension = "D:\xampp\php\ext\php_xdebug.dll"
xdebug.remote_handler = "dbgp"
xdebug.remote_host = "localhost"
xdebug.remote_port = 9000

Also, search for the line containing “xdebug.remote_enable” and change it to:

xdebug.remote_enable = On

Then restart apache service.

Now, open the file Program Files\NetBeans 6.9.1\etc\netbeans.conf and find the line containing “netbeans_default_options”. Add the text “-J-Dorg.netbeans.modules.php.dbgp.level=400″ at the end of the line so that it looks like the following:

netbeans_default_options="-J-client -J-Xss2m -J-Xms32m -J-XX:PermSize=32m -J-XX:MaxPermSize=200m -J-Dapple.laf.useScreenMenuBar=true -J-Dapple.awt.graphics.UseQuartz=true -J-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true" -J-Dorg.netbeans.modules.php.dbgp.level=400

Now, restart Netbeans and select Debug>Debug Project. However, I have experienced it is very slow on Windows compared to the installation on Fedora.

Hope this helps.

I am running XAMPP 1.7.4 with PHP 5.3.5 on Windows 7. When using any text related GD library functions such as imagettftext(), I get the following error:

[SOLVED] Warning: imagettftext() [function.imagettftext]: Invalid font filename in path/to/php/file.php on line NN

Normally, this happens when the font is missing in GDFONTPATH and can usually be resolved by using correct font folder, using correct font file and naming it properly in the PHP file. However, in this particular case, I’ve figured that this is the problem with GD Library or PHP because I am still getting the error even though I have done everything right. I tried WAMP but still in vain. When I tried the same in my Linux machine, everything was fine.

Here is what I did as a workaround. I removed the putenv line and referred to fonts by relative path. For example, the following sample code is the one that does not work

putenv('GDFONTPATH=' . realPath('fonts'));
$font="ariali";
imagettftext($image, $size, $angle, $xcordinate, $ycordinate, $text_color, $font, $text);

I have assumed that the fonts folder contains a file ariali.ttf and in that case, the code must have worked. However, it does not, so the workaround is to do the following:

//putenv('GDFONTPATH=' . realPath('fonts')); remove this line
$font="fonts/ariali.ttf"; //use relative path here instead
imagettftext($image, $size, $angle, $xcordinate, $ycordinate, $text_color, $font, $text);

The above code works and I guess this is how I will have to use fonts in PHP from now on.

I am working on a computer with XAMPP installed on Windows 7. When I upgraded XAMPP to fix the earlier problem with WinMySQLAdmin, a new problem with mysql was introduced. The error log (mysql_error.log) showed the following entry at the end:

[ERROR] Fatal error: Can’t open and lock privilege tables: Incorrect key file for table ‘user’; try to repair it

To fix, I downgraded to earlier version of XAMPP, exported the database and removed the mysql data directory, and reinstalled the latest version of XAMPP. Now, MySQL could start without problems. Then, I imported the data back and all was well.

I am working on a project on a Windows 7 machine with XAMPP installed. The version installed was 1.7.0 and it was showing dialog boxes with the following error:

Access violation at address xxxxxx in module ‘LIBMYSQL.dll’. Read of address 00000000

Here is one:

I tried reinstalling, but reinstallation failed because apparently mysql\bin folder was not remove during the uninstallation. So, I stopped the winmysqladmin.exe from the task manager and removed the bin folder and reinstalled again.

Then, I was able to install XAMPP. The new version of WinMySQLAdmin does not seem to have the same problem.

I ran into a computer with Windows XP and I got the following error while trying to install a new Windows application:

Windows Installer
This installation package cannot be installed by the Windows Installer service. You must install a Windows service pack that contains a newer version of the Windows Installer service.

I did not have time to install all automatic updates or install the whole service pack, so I downloaded a Windows hotfix from here. The file is named WindowsXP-KB942288-v3-x86.exe. I installed it and the program could be installed without problems.