DLL load fails when on any drive other than C:

If the current working directory is not in the C: drive, then importing the win32api module will fail.

I:\>python
Python 3.6.1 (v3.6.1:69c0db5, Mar 21 2017, 18:41:36) [MSC v.1900 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import win32api
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified path is invalid.
>>> quit()

I:\>C:

C:\>python
Python 3.6.1 (v3.6.1:69c0db5, Mar 21 2017, 18:41:36) [MSC v.1900 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import win32api
>>> # No traceback is appears.
>>> quit()

C:\>

As you can see in the example above, when the command prompt is in the I: drive, the import statement fails. If the user switches to the C: drive and tries again, then the import statement succeeds.

Reported by: wecsam

Original Ticket: pywin32/bugs/753

This works fine for me - I'm guessing something in your environment (eg, PATH) has a relative path rather than a fully-qualified path which includes the drive letter.

Original comment by: mhammond

I tried it on another machine, and the problem did not occur. That machine was running Windows 10. The machine where the problem occurred was running Windows 7. What version of Windows did you use to test?

Original comment by: wecsam

I checked the PATH variable on the Windows 7 machine, and all of the paths in PATH are absolute.

Original comment by: wecsam

My development machine still runs Windows 7

Original comment by: mhammond

Hm, here is the full PATH variable. I'll try to spot which DLL is failing to load on Monday.

C:\Program Files\Python36\Scripts\
C:\Program Files\Python36\
C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common
C:\Windows\system32
C:\Windows
C:\Windows\System32\Wbem
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
C:\Windows\CCM
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\EMC"
C:\Windows\CCM
C:\Windows\CCM
C:\Windows\CCM
C:\Windows\CCM
C:\Windows\CCM
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\EMC\
C:\Windows\CCM
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\

Original comment by: wecsam

[Avasam]

Since 71afa71, the PATH is now prepended, rather than appended. For Python >= 3.8, the PATH environment variable isn't even used. This is included in pywin32==226.

Python 3.7 has also reached EOL (meaning no security fixes/support) and I'd recommend migrating over to 3.8+ (see #2207)

.exe installers are now deprecated #1939, so you should install from PyPI (ie: pip install pywin32>=226)

Given the sheer amount of "ImportError: DLL load failed" issue duplication and old history, I'd like to consolidate the current state of these issues. So I'll close and reference back any issue that only has comments showing the issue:

• from before November 10th, 2019 (pywin32<226)
• using .exe installers
• using Python < 3.8

Please also try https://github.com/mhammond/pywin32#troubleshooting before opening a new issue, or let us, and others, know if it did resolve your issue.