diff --git a/buildtools/config.py b/buildtools/config.py
index 20a2fd9d..8072a2d2 100644
--- a/buildtools/config.py
+++ b/buildtools/config.py
@@ -27,8 +27,6 @@ from distutils.dep_util  import newer
 
 import distutils.sysconfig
 
-from attrdict import AttrDict
-
 runSilently = False
 
 #----------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -992,6 +990,8 @@ def getMSVCInfo(PYTHON, arch, set_env=False):
     if MSVCinfo is not None:
         return MSVCinfo
 
+    from attrdict import AttrDict
+
     # Note that it starts with a monkey-patch in setuptools.msvc to
     # workaround this issue: pypa/setuptools#1902
     cmd = \
diff --git a/requirements/devel.txt b/requirements/devel.txt
index cb7cb3c4..d51d57b9 100644
--- a/requirements/devel.txt
+++ b/requirements/devel.txt
@@ -21,4 +21,4 @@ Jinja2==2.10
 markupsafe==1.1.1
 doc2dash==2.3.0
 beautifulsoup4
-attrdict3
+attrdict3 ; sys_platform == 'win32'