Installing¶

PyWinRT runs on Windows with CPython 3.11 or later. Its packages are on PyPI, with wheels for x86, x64 and ARM64.

Which packages¶

There is no single package to install. Each part of the WinRT API is a package of its own, so an application installs the ones it uses:

pip install winrt-Windows.Devices.Bluetooth winrt-Windows.Devices.Enumeration

from winrt.windows.devices.bluetooth import BluetoothLEDevice
from winrt.windows.devices.enumeration import DeviceInformation

A package brings winrt-runtime with it, which is what runs it. It also brings whichever of winrt-Windows.Foundation, winrt-Windows.Foundation.Collections and winrt-Windows.Storage.Streams it uses, since nearly every API hands back their types, and the packages its classes derive from, as winrt-Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls brings winrt-Windows.UI.Xaml. A Windows App SDK component brings every other component whose types it hands back. Any other package whose types it names is left to the application, which is why the example installs winrt-Windows.Devices.Enumeration beside winrt-Windows.Devices.Bluetooth.

How the packages are cut depends on where the API comes from:

API	Packages	Example
Windows SDK	one per WinRT namespace	`winrt-Windows.Devices.Bluetooth` gives `winrt.windows.devices.bluetooth`
Windows App SDK	one per NuGet component, each with several namespaces	`winrt-Microsoft.WindowsAppSDK.WinUI` gives `winrt.microsoft.ui.xaml` and the other WinUI 3 modules
WinUI 2	one package	`winui2-Microsoft.UI.Xaml` gives the `winui2.microsoft.ui.*` modules
WebView2	one package	`winrt-Microsoft.Web.WebView2` gives `winrt.microsoft.web.webview2.core`

The page of a package on PyPI lists the modules it provides.

Some APIs that bridge WinRT and Win32 are packages of their own too, named for the namespace they extend, such as winrt-Windows.Graphics.Capture.Interop. So are the Windows App SDK's bootstrapper, winrt-Microsoft.WindowsAppRuntime.Bootstrap, and the WebView2 runtime component, winrt-Microsoft.Web.WebView2.Dll. Their modules are in the API reference.

A package that is not installed¶

A type that an installed package names, as the result of a method for example, may come from a package that is not installed. The call that needs it then raises ModuleNotFoundError with the module's name, and the package to install is named after the namespace:

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'winrt.windows.storage'

pip install winrt-Windows.Storage

Each package also has an [all] extra, which installs every package whose types it names, such as winrt-Windows.Media.Ocr[all]. Those name others in turn, so the extra often installs eighty packages or more, most of which an application never uses. Installing the packages an application uses is the better choice.