How to fix "ImportError: DLL load failed" while importing win32api

For my case, install and reinstall pywin32 doesn't help. After copied the two files from [installation directory of Anaconda]\Lib\site-packages\pywin32_system32 to C:\Windows\System32, it works.

My environment is python 3.8 in miniconda. The two files are pythoncom38.dll and pywintypes38.dll.

Solved

If you are working in a miniconda on conda environment. You could just install pywin32 using conda instead of pip.

This solved my problem:

conda install pywin32

For me, it worked by downgrading my pywin32 from version 227 to version 224. Just type the following command on any shell in administrator mode:

pip install --upgrade pywin32==224

Run Scripts\pywin32_postinstall.py -install in an Admin command prompt

ref: https://github.com/mhammond/pywin32/issues/1431

edit: User @JoyfulPanda gave a warning:

Running this script with admin rights will also copy pythoncom37.dll, pywintypes37.dll (corresponding to the pywin32 version), into C:\WINDOWS\system32, which effectively overwrites the corresponding DLL versions from Anaconda already there. This later causes problem when openning (on Windows) "Start Menu > Anaconda3 (64-bit) > Anaconda Prompt (a_virtual_env_name)". At least Anaconda 2019.07 has pywin32 223 installed by default. Pywin32 224 may work, but 225-228 causes problem for Anaconda (2019.07)