I added support to run ctypes from a CVS sandbox without the need to install the package. This even works for different Python versions on the same machine, or different machines sharing the same directory. This behaviour is implemented by the _ctypes.py file in this directory. When imported, it replaces itself in sys.modules by the correct _ctypes.pyd / _ctypes.so file from the platform specific build directory. Just do a 'setup.py build' and insert the top-level directory into sys.path (with setting the PYTHONPATH env variable, with a .pth file, or however), and it should work.