See: - https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/deprecated/distutils-legacy.html#prefer-setuptools - https://peps.python.org/pep-0632/#migration-advice - https://github.com/pypa/packaging-problems/issues/127 - https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/3625 - https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/3622 - https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/4137 - https://docs.python.org/3.11/distutils/ > The entire distutils package has been deprecated and will be removed in Python 3.12 - https://docs.python.org/3.12/distutils/ (empty page, now lives at https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/deprecated/distutils/ ) Since pywin32 already imports setuptools, the module will still be found with Python 3.12, but falls in the "deprecated" category.