Installing Python on a Windows 2000 Server

[Steve Holden]

Mike Moum wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm a civil engineer who also doubles as chief programmer for technical 
> applications at my company. Most of our software is written in Visual 
> Basic because our VP in charge of I.T. likes to have "consistency", and 
> at the moment we're a Microsoft shop. He has assigned me the task of 
> developing an new application, the exact nature of which is not 
> important for my question. I told him that, in my opinion, that Visual 
> Basic was not the best choice for developing this application, and that 
> I wanted to use Python. After a bit of discussion of the pros and cons, 
> he said to go ahead. I managed to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. :>)
> 
> We have a central server array running Windows Server 2000 (I think 
> that's the right name; networking is not my specialty, but it's 
> definately Windows). Some of our workstations run Windows 2000; others 
> run Windows XP Pro. I would like to install Python on the server, and 
> run the application that I'll be developing from the workstations, 
> without having to install any Python components on the workstations 
> themselves. In other words, the Python executable, and the various 
> libraries, dll's, and what have you, as well as the application that I'm 
> developing, should all reside on the server. The only thing on the 
> workstations would be a shortcut to myapplication.py.
> 
> Does anyone know whether it is possible to do this? I've done some 
> Google searching, with no conclusive results, and poked about on 
> python.org, but haven't really been able to find anything. Normally I'd 
> be happy to just try it out and see what happens, but we're breaking new 
> ground here (this is an amazingly big step for our hide-bound IS 
> department!), so I'd like everything to go as smoothly as possible.
> 
> TIA,
> Mike

Mike:

Well done, sounds like you are in for a big success!

What you describe sounds like a pretty normal setup, assuming that there 
is a network share accessible to all desktops that the Python binaries 
can be located on.

Windows XP and 2000 run the same Python binaries, so there shouldn't be 
any problems. If I'm wrong this message will bring Tim Peters into the 
conversation, and his opinion can safely be regarded as authoritative 
(right, Tim?).

regards
  Steve
-- 
Steve Holden        +1 703 861 4237  +1 800 494 3119
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