OK, I've written a stupid simple little python program called Coloriffic that lets you adjust values of red, green, and blue and display the resulting color. I used Pygame to accomplish this.
I then looked around for how to turn that into a simple program I could give to someone else without them needing to have Python or Pygame installed. After reading of a few options (and several pieces of advice on this very site), it seemed that most people recommended cx_freeze so I downloaded the WHL and installed it. I built a setup.py script, which wasn't hard as Coloriffic has no images or other external files, and is a very simple program.
When I ran the setup.py, it worked! It created a Coloroffic.exe that ran just fine. The problem is, it also created a directory with a hundred other support files. I tried creating an MSI installer, which did give me a single executable, but one that when run simply drops the same hundred+ files in another directory.
Is there a way to take my utterly simple Coloriffic.py program and convert it into a single Windows exe file that has everything it needs INSIDE the exe and that doesn't need to be installed? I'm trying to figure out if in Python I can take my .py programs and compile them into single executables without creating a directory of support files?
If so, how do I do that?
Thanks.
EDIT: Not looking to make it closed source, just looking to gather up everything in a single file. Also, I read that "py2exe will make the exe file you want but you need to have the same version of MSVCR90.dll on the machine you're going to use your new exe" - that could be a problem, unless all Windows machines from 7 on have this file all in the same version? This is the very reason for me asking this is the first place, to create a fully independent EXE file. I also see some people recommending cx_freeze, but either they don't understand that it doesn't create a single file, or I don't understand how to make it. Is there a way to make cx_freeze create a single standalone exe?
I guess I can hope that the MSVCR90.dll dependency has been done away with and try py2exe - but I would love some advice before I go down that road if it's the wrong one.
Thanks for the suggestions and the links to other answered questions, but I still don't see a straight answer to this one?
EDIT2: One more note, when I use cx_freeze to create the executable, and then I run Coloriffic.exe, first it creates what looks like a black Dos-box window, then a second window pops up with my program. I would also like for the executable to launch just ONE window, my program, without a Dos type window coming up first and remaining up behind the program window. Thanks.
Try Py2exe, this is a pretty easy and fast approach:
Py2exe Tutorial
exe has not to be installed, but it also creates support files in the same directory
Related
I have created a AI project by python. Now I want to share in online that every one can see this and use this but no one can see the source code. How can I do this!? Note: I use almost all the way to make it an exe file but it failed. Is there any way to share this project others and no one can't see the source code??
I would recommend creating an exe file with Auto PY to EXE, a GUI to convert python scripts to executables
It is incredibly easy. First you just install it with pip: pip install auto-py-to-exe.
Then, just enter auto-py-to-exe in your terminal to start the GUI.
From there, you select your python file, whether you want a directory or one file, whether your application is console or window-based, and press convert
I have created python desktop software. Now I want to market that as a product. But my problem is, anyone can decompile my exe file and they will get the actual code.
So is there any way to encrypt my code and convert it to exe before deployment. I have tried different ways.
But nothing is working. Is there any way to do that?.Thanks in advance
This link has most of the info you need.
But since links are discouraged here:
There is py2exe, which compiles your code into an .exe file, but afaik it's not difficult to reverse-engineer the code from the exe file.
You can of course make your code more difficult to understand. Rename your classes, functions to be non-sensical (e.g. rename print(s) to delete(s) or to a()) people will have a difficult time then.
You can also avoid all of that by using SaaS (Software as a Service), where you can host your code online on a server and get paid by people using it.
Or consider open-sourcing it :)
You can install pyinstaller per pip install pyinstaller (make sure to also add it to your environment variables) and then open shell in the folder where your file is (shift+right-click somewhere where no file is and "open PowerShell here") and the do "pyinstaller --onefile YOUR_FILE".
If there will be created a dist folder, take out the exe file and delete the build folder and the .spec I think it is.
And there you go with your standalone exe File.
I’ve recently tried making an .exe from my .py file.
(This is my first time making a .exe)
It’s a long script and includes this cool function.
If I compile this to a .exe
It works just fine on the PC I code on, but not on another PC. Which makes me believe there is something missing during the pip installer ?
To compile this script I need to have ctypes Installed,
and in the cmd say: pyinstaller filename.py
Am I missing something ?
I don't have any error to show unfortunately, it just stays blank after it tries to run wait_until_idle.
The most trusted/automated way that I found to make an exe out of python code is this package:
https://pypi.org/project/auto-py-to-exe/
I tested it myself on multiple situations with whole projects not just single/small scripts.
The main disadvantage of this is the size of the exe file, it's really big and specially if you are using external libraries like pandas, numpy could easily make your exe pass 100 Mega bytes.
It's a simple graphical UI that you could use to generate exe, There is no external dependencies you need to install separately.
Alright, so I managed to use PyInstaller to build a homework assignment I made with Pygame. Cool. The executable works fine and everything.
Problem is, alongside the executable, there is so much clutter. So many files, like pyds and dlls accompany the exe in the same directory, making it look so ugly.
Now, I know that these files are important; the modules I used, such as Pygame, need them to work. Still, how do I make PyInstaller build my game, so that it puts the clutter into its own folder? I could just manually make a folder and move the files in there, but it stops the exe from working.
If this info would help any, I used Python 3.4.3 and am on Windows.
Apparently this is an open request for pyinstaller, but hasn't happened in the past two years.
My workaround for this one was to create a shortcut one folder higher than the .exe folder with all the files.
The difficult part here is to set up the shortcut to work in all PCs. I did two things in the shortcut properties.
Delete the "Starts in:" path
Set as the "Target": "%windir%\system32\cmd.exe" /c start "" "%CD%\YourFolder\YourEXE.exe"
The second one calls a command line and launches your exe with a relative path. I have only tested it with windows 7. The downside is that this becomes a shortcut to the command line and you get a console window.
A different option is to create a batch file in the one folder higher than the .exe and call it. This shows only briefly the console window, but won't allow you to set your own icon. A sample code that launches your code:
#echo off
setlocal enabledelayedexpansion enableextensions
set CDir=%~dp0
set EXEF=%CDir%MyEXEFolder\
cd %EXEF%
start "MyCode" "MyCode.exe"
exit
Just open a notepad, add the code and save it as a .bat file.
This answer also describes a workaround with py2exe, but a similar approach can be used in pyinstaller. However, I find this quite "ugly" and I am not sure if it's that easy to collect all dependencies in one folder.
There is also Relative, but I didn't want to use another program.
Not trying to dig up this old question, but this was at the top of my Google search so it may be for others as well.
If you intend to distribute the program in some kind of folder, you can always just mark everything unnecessary as hidden in Windows, and it will remain hidden even if you compress or extract it.
For a program that I designed to be very user friendly, I just selected each file and folder that was not necessary to the user and hid them. If the user has show hidden files on (rarely default), they aren't likely to be intimidated by the mess of files that pyinstaller creates.
I used Pyinstaller to create a standalone exe file for a PyQt project. I did not use the single file option because the exe that is created with the single file option takes too long to open. Therefore, Pyinstaller created a dist folder that contains a bunch of files including my program.exe file. I would now like to create a setup.exe file that will place the contents of my dist folder in the program directory and create a shortcut in the start menu and on the desktop. I want it to be super simple for the user. Maybe like the setup.exe files that you get when you download a program from CNET. I found Inno-setup, which looks promising. However, I do not know if there any special considerations because the program is a standalone program create from a python/PyQt program. Thanks! Anyone have experience with this task? Is there a program everyone is using for this task that I do not know about?
Inno-Setup or NSIS are probably the easiest to use. You just tell them what files to include and where to put them and then they will create a nice installer for you. I wrote a short tutorial on my experiences using InnoSetup that you might find helpful:
http://www.blog.pythonlibrary.org/2008/08/27/packaging-wxpymail-for-distribution/
Note that this tutorial was based around a wxPython app I wrote, but the concepts are the same.