Installing Python on a Windows 2000 Server

[Mike Moum]

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