Things are a lot better with Python 3 on Windows, and especially so with Python 3.5+.
"pip install numpy" will actually work, among other things. But even for packages that don't have binary wheels and have to compile things, it's much easier now to install a compiler toolchain (it's actually a single download!), and have your Python installation just pick it up automatically.
> Things are a lot better with Python 3 on Windows, and especially so with Python 3.5+.
For one of my main applications py3 proved to be too slow. For my application I use: numpy, pil, tkinter, and subprocess (and process/produce/draw on screen images (at a rate of 120/sec)). I don't know WHY but with python2 it runs acceptably fast, on python3 it's 20% slower. This has been something common for me actually.
I do tend to use py3 when doing any kind of data science though.
if you are using windows, using python without this website is nearly impossible: http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/