How do I set up Setuptools for Python 2.6 on Windows?

You could download and run http://peak.telecommunity.com/dist/ez_setup.py. This will download and install setuptools.

[update]

This script no longer works - the version of setuptools the it downloads is not at the URI specified in ez_setup.py -navigate to http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.7/s/setuptools/ for the latest version - the script also does some md5 checking, I haven't looked into it any further.

First Option - Online Installation (i.e. remaining connected to the Internet during the entire installation process):

1. Download setuptools-0.6c9.tar.gz
2. Use 7-zip to extract it to a folder(directory) outside your Windows Python installation folder
3. Go the folder (refer step 2) and run ez_setup.py from the corresponding dos (command) prompt
4. Ensure that your PATH includes the appropriate C:\Python2X\Scripts directory

Second Option:

1. Download setuptools-0.6c9.tar.gz
2. Download setuptools-0.6c9-py2.6.egg to a folder(directory) outside your Windows Python installation folder
3. Use 7-zip to extract ez_setup.py in the same folder as setuptools-0.6c9-py2.6.egg
4. Go to the corresponding dos prompt and run python ez_setup.py setuptools-0.6c9-py2.6.egg from the command prompt
5. Ensure that your PATH includes the appropriate C:\Python2X\Scripts directory

Third Option (assuming that you have Visual Studio 2005 or MinGW on your machine)

1. Download setuptools-0.6c9.tar.gz
2. Use 7-zip to extract it to a folder(directory) outside your Windows Python installation folder
3. Go the folder (refer step 2) and run python setup.py install from the corresponding dos (command) prompt

Please provide feedback.

The Nov. 21 answer didn't work for me. I got it working on my 64 bit Vista machine by following the Method 1 instructions, except for Step 3 I typed:

setup.py install

So, in summary, I did:

1. Download setuptools-0.6c9.tar.gz
2. Use 7-zip to extract it to a folder (directory) outside your Windows Python installation folder
3. At a DOS (command) prompt, cd to your the newly created setuptools-0.6c9 folder and type "setup.py install" (without the quotes).
4. Ensure that your PATH includes the appropriate C:\Python2X\Scripts directory

I'm able to find the EXE doing google,

you can simply download it from following URL, and double click and install....

http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.6/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c11.win32-py2.6.exe#md5=1509752c3c2e64b5d0f9589aafe053dc