Trouble installing due to missing C libraries in my system

[sm18lr88]

In my Windows 11 laptop I removed all of python and reinstalled to make sure about this error, but I just can't get past it.
I have installed VSCode with just about every single option, MinGW with just about every option, CMake... I even tried copying all the .h files from MinGW into Python311/include, /include/sys, and /include/machine, which caused a bunch of other issues during install. Here's what's happening so far:

Building wheels for collected packages: regex
Building wheel for regex (setup.py) ... error
error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× python setup.py bdist_wheel did not run successfully.
│ exit code: 1
╰─> [19 lines of output]
running bdist_wheel
running build
running build_py
creating build
creating build\lib.win-amd64-cpython-311
creating build\lib.win-amd64-cpython-311\regex
copying regex_3_init_.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-cpython-311\regex
copying regex_3\regex.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-cpython-311\regex
copying regex_3_regex_core.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-cpython-311\regex
copying regex_3\test_regex.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-cpython-311\regex
running build_ext
building 'regex._regex' extension
creating build\temp.win-amd64-cpython-311
creating build\temp.win-amd64-cpython-311\Release
creating build\temp.win-amd64-cpython-311\Release\regex_3
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Preview\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.37.32705\bin\HostX86\x64\cl.exe" /c /nologo /O2 /W3 /GL /DNDEBUG /MD -IC:\Users\Leo\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\include -IC:\Users\Leo\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\Include "-IC:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Preview\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.37.32705\include" "-IC:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Preview\VC\Auxiliary\VS\include" /Tcregex_3_regex.c /Fobuild\temp.win-amd64-cpython-311\Release\regex_3_regex.obj
_regex.c
C:\Users\Leo\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python311\include\pyconfig.h(59): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'io.h': No such file or directory
error: command 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Preview\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.37.32705\bin\HostX86\x64\cl.exe' failed with exit code 2
[end of output]

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
ERROR: Failed building wheel for regex
Running setup.py clean for regex
Failed to build regex
ERROR: Could not build wheels for regex, which is required to install pyproject.toml-based projects

Thanks for any help.

[sabaimran]

Ah, sorry about this, @sm18lr88. This sounds like a huge pain.

Just adding a couple more troubleshoot steps here based on what I've read online.

1. Have you installed the Windows SDK with the C++ development workload?
2. Have you added the SDK to your PATH? If not, do the steps below. If so, skip.
   1. Open Start menu and search for "Environment Variables"
   2. Click on "Edit system environment variables"
   3. Under "System Variables", scroll down and find "Path"
   4. Click on "Edit"
   5. Click on "New" and add the path to the Windows SDK installation directory. Default might be something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.19041.0\x64.
   6. Click OK
3. Try reinstalling

This Stack Overflow post also has some relevant points. When you're installing the Windows SDK, make sure to install the following:

1. Visual C++ Build tools core features.
2. MSVC toolset C++ 2019 v142 (x86,x64)
3. Visual C++ 2019 Redistributable Update
4. Windows 10 SDK (10.0.17763.0) for Desktop C++

We can hop on a live call on Discord if you want to pair debug this and share your screen.

Otherwise, if you can wait a day or two, we can send you a .exe file that hopefully should be more of a one-click install process.

Sorry for all the installation troubles 🙏🏾 and thanks for your patience ❤️.

Cross-linking our Discord thread as well.

[sm18lr88]

Thanks for the suggestions! The only one I was missing is adding the Windows SDK to the system path. Mine was 10.0.22621.0, if that makes any difference. Still no progress.

I really appreciate the live-chat offer. I'm sleep deprived and trying to pry myself away from exciting AI projects. I'll be back soon.

[sm18lr88]

I found the answer. I had to run the 'py -m pip install khoj-assistant' command from VS Native Tools rather than cmd or powershell.
It seems this is how I've managed to install a bunch of different things that weren't otherwise installing.

[sabaimran]

It's fantastic that that unblocked you on the installation, but horrific that you had to go through such a circuitous route. How do you open the VS tool command line interface? Is it from within the IDE? Or does it change your default command prompt?

Did you have any of those tools installed before, or did the VS dev tools installation only begin as a consequence of attempting the Khoj installation.

Apologies for all the hassle 🙏🏾. We are releasing a .exe file this week. I'm going to test it out, but hopefully that should make it much, much easier to install on Windows.

[sm18lr88]

Thanks for the support!

My Windows 11 is a little funky. To open VS Tools I installed Visual Studio 2022 with all sorts of C++, plus other things I needed for other AI projects.
I then go to Start, type Native Tools, and open it that way, looking like a CMD prompt. I can also open it from Visual Studio itself as a special command prompt.

Will you be adding text to speech and speech to text in the app?
Also would be nice for the app to check for hardware requirements for various models, with support for local AI models (especially now that some are in .cop and becoming more quantized).
Thanks for your work!

[debanjum]

That's a lot of steps to get this to work 😬. Hopefully we can simplify Khoj setup soon to not require jumping through these many hoops.

Will you be adding text to speech and speech to text in the app?

The ability to use voice to interact with Khoj is a great idea! Typing feels annoyingly slow/unnatural, especially for chat.

Also would be nice for the app to check for hardware requirements for various models, with support for local AI models (especially now that some are in .cop and becoming more quantized).

Yes, while search already works offline, we're looking at using local AI models for chat as well. See #242 to track this feature requests

[sm18lr88]

What I was thinking is to use Khaj to offload thoughts into Obsidian: an app in my phone records an audio file of whatever I want to rant about, sends it through the cloud to my server with Kahj, which transcribes it, then uses AI to organize the transcription, add tags and back links into an .md file added to Obsidian as part of my daily journal.
This is some of the stuff I'd like to set up with AI eventually. Declutter my mind and make my thoughts organized and searchable.