Installing wxPython on Windows: DistutilsPlatformError: Microsoft Visual C++ 14.2 or greater is required

The current wxPython 4.1.1 is not compatible with python 3.10 on windows (it works on Linux). You can download an older version of Visual Studio Build Tools to get around the issue with the DistutilsPlatformError, however you will not be able to successfully install on python 3.10 on windows. I found a solution for the problem, the link is Compile_wxPython_4.1.2a1_Python3.10_Windows. I was not able to compile it but there is a link to the whl file that was bult using the procedure. I downloaded and installed it using the command pip install wxPython-4.1.2a1-cp310-cp310-win_amd64.whl I am confident in the near future 4.1.2 will be released to PyPy and you will be able to install it using pip.

The answers here have already provided the right pointers, but in this anser I would like to list all the necessary steps directly so you don't have to visit other resources, and it also provides the solution for both 64-bit and 32-bit versions of Python 3.10.x.

Solution for 64-bit version of Python 3.10.x

1. Download the wxPython wheel file directly here: wxPython-4.1.2a1-cp310-cp310-win_amd64.whl.
2. Using the Windows command line, move to the folder where you downloaded the wheel file.
3. Run: pip install wxPython-4.1.2a1-cp310-cp310-win_amd64.whl

Solution for 32-bit version of Python 3.10.x

Prerequisites

• Download and install Microsoft C++ Build Tools.
• Download and install cygwin.
• Download and install GitHub Command Line Interface (GitHub CLI).

Build wxPython

In the Windows command line ran as Administrator, execute the following commands:

gh repo clone wxWidgets/Phoenix
cd .\Phoenix\
git submodule update --init --recursive
python -m venv venv
.\venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r .\requirements.txt
python build.py dox etg --nodoc sip build

Create wheel

Still in the command line, execute the following:

python setup.py bdist_wheel

Install wheel

Still in the command line, execute the following:

cd dist
pip install <created-wheel-filename>

The <created-wheel-filename> should be the wheel you just created, so something like: wxPython-4.2.0a1-cp310-cp310-win32.whl

Source

• Compile wxPython 4.1.2a1 using Microsoft C++ Build Tools 2019

This problem is currently being fixed. Or rather it is fixed and a PR will be made with the fix pretty soon. I wrote a proper MSVC build environment script instead of the one that comes with either distutils or setuptool neither of which really work correctly when setting up an MSVC build environment.

Here is a link to the script I wrote that handles setting up the build environment properly

https://github.com/kdschlosser/python_msvc

and here is a link to a working fork of wxPython

https://github.com/oleksis/Phoenix/tree/try-pyMSVC

The problem with wxPython compiling properly is because neither setuptools or distutils has the capability of detecting Visual Studio 2022 properly. My script uses COM interfaces to collect the information needed to set up the build environment. The environment is set up without using the vcvar*.bat files.