import gtk/glib produces ImportError: DLL load failed

Question

I installed the latest versions of python (2.6.5), gtk+, pygtk (and friends) from their respective websites on Windows XP SP3. When you try to import gtk (or just glib for that matter), an ImportError is raised:

Python 2.6.5 (r265:79096, Mar 19 2010, 21:48:26) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import gtk
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\gtk-2.0\gtk\__init__.py", line 38, in <module>
    import gobject as _gobject
  File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\gtk-2.0\gobject\__init__.py", line 26, in <module>
    from glib import spawn_async, idle_add, timeout_add, timeout_add_seconds, \
  File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\gtk-2.0\glib\__init__.py", line 22, in <module>
    from glib._glib import *
ImportError: DLL load failed: The specified procedure could not be found.

This was working on the same machine around 6 months ago, although this time around I have re-installed. I tried different versions of the libraries but still couldn't get it to work.

There are a couple of pages out there relating to this, but not suggest a solution, and I'm unable to find one.

Answer 1

Some reports indicate that the trick is to import pygtk first. Have you tried that?

Answer 2

I managed to solve this myself. Firstly, there can be more than one cause so this may not help everyone.

I went through the PATH system environment variable and removed all paths that pointed to old versions of gtk+ (for example, those that come packaged with applications).