how to install pywin32 for ArcGIS Pro 3.x

[TimWhiteaker]

How do I install pywin32 for ArcGIS Pro 3.0?  It worked for me in 2.x, but in 3.0, the installation fails whether trying it from the Pro user interface (Settings > Package Manager > Add Packages) or in a Python command prompt using conda install or pip install. There seems to be a lot of conflicts in dependency versions. After attempting to install, if I run this code:

from win32com import client

I get:

ImportError: DLL load failed while importing pythoncom: The specified procedure could not be found.

I'm using pywin32 and arcpy to update an APRX and an Excel file and export sheets from Excel to PDF.

[DanPatterson]

Your attempts to install what is already there (at least parts of it) may have had undesireable consequences.

from win32com import client

dir(client)
['CDispatch', 'CLSIDToClass', 'CastTo', 'CoClassBaseClass', 'Constants', 
'Dispatch', 'DispatchBaseClass', 'DispatchEx', 'DispatchWithEvents', 'EventsProxy', 'GetActiveObject', 'GetObject', 'Moniker', 'Record', 
'VARIANT', 'WithEvents', '_PyIDispatchType', '__WrapDispatch', '__builtins__', '__cached__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__loader__', 
'__name__', '__package__', '__path__', '__spec__', '_event_setattr_', 
'_get_good_object_', '_get_good_single_object_', 'build', 'constants', 
'dynamic', 'gencache', 'getevents', 'pythoncom', 'pywintypes', 'sys']

Delete your clone (or reinstall Pro if you tried this in base.

>>>conda install xxxxxx --dry-run

Is a useful step to anticipate installation issues beforehand.

[TimWhiteaker]

I was working in a clone. I switched back to base (arcgispro-py3) and get this in a Python command prompt.

(arcgispro-py3) C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\bin\Python\envs\arcgispro-py3>python
Python 3.9.11 [MSC v.1931 64 bit (AMD64)] :: Anaconda, Inc. on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from win32com import client
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'win32com'

I'm in Pro 3.0.0.  Is it possible that attempting to install pywin32 in the clone corrupted the base installation?

[DanPatterson]

I am using 3.0.2.

I can't remember when pywin32 stuff appeared.

Messing with the clone can't affect the base environment.

You can also look at

Welcome to PyPDF2 — PyPDF2 documentation

xlrd — xlrd 2.0.1 documentation

xlwt documentation — xlwt 1.3.0 documentation

for other options if you can resolve, they are installed by esri and I think used somewhere in the Pro ecosystem.

[TimWhiteaker]

Thanks for the other things to look at but I don't think they handle exporting PDFs from Excel.

With a clean install of Pro 3.0, I upgraded to 3.0.2, and I still don't have pywin32 installed.  A search for "win" in the Package Manager in Pro reveals these libraries that seem close but not quite it:

* python-certifi-win32

* pywin32-security

For an import test, this time I tried from within a Python console window in Pro. I get "No module named 'win32com'".  I wonder how you have pywin32 but I don't.

console window

[TimWhiteaker · Accepted solution]

The solution I found:

1. In Pro 3.0 or 3.0.2 (tested on both), clone the base environment and activate the new environment. 
2. Add the pywin32 package.
3. Browse to the environment folder (e.g., C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\envs\my-new-env) in an elevated Python command prompt and enter this command: python.exe Scripts/pywin32_postinstall.py -install

Now I can use pywin32. That last step was a tip I gleaned from Gohlke's wheel page.

This was done on a virtual machine. On my physical machine, the admins have some security thing going on that prevents me from installing the pywin32 package, but others may not encounter such an issue.