This situation is exacerbated by the fact that, for Windows, Anaconda is the only way to get packages like numpy etc. working without downloading prebuilt wheels. If pip on Windows worked reliably Anaconda would have no need to exist.
NumPy (and I think SciPy) used to be standard Windows installs (as in download an exe and install it). Pandas was too, but now you can use pip. The only catch was that you should install 32 bit python instead of 64 (not sure if that's still the case).
For me, condo is good solution to install necessary dependences with little pain.