I finally worked through setting up my local windows python environment and was able to get the steem-python packages installed on my windows build!
Part of this exercise was discovering some of the resources available to developers interested in using the python computer language to access the steem blockchain. The devsteem channel on discord is a great place to start. This post made by @themarkymark here is a great quick start quide.
When I followed these steps I received errors about pycrypto install failing. Even when I installed Visual Studio Community 2017/ Desktop Development with C++ / vc++ 2015.3 v140 toolset for desktop (x86,x64) the error remained.
I spent many hours installing, uninstalling, check the visual c++ libraries in frustration and confusion. I read a bit more and the key for me personally was to leverage Anaconda 3 and conda. I am sure miniconda would work equally as well. I have delusions of grandeur and think I will need the whole Anaconda some day.
So the key that made this all work for me was understanding conda environments. If you are not familiar with conda check out this. After creating and activating my python env I ran the command 'python -m pip install -U git+git://github.com/Netherdrake/steem-python' from within conda.
Ghast! The same error, this can't be.
Next, I ran the command 'conda install pycrypto', it succeeded! I next ran the 'python -m pip...' command again and the install succeeded.
executing the code block:
from steem import Steem
s = Steem()
s.get_account('ned')