Experiences with Py2Exe

[Larry Bates]

Isaac Rodriguez wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am looking for feedback from people that has used or still uses
> Py2Exe. I love to program in python, and I would like to use it to
> write support tools for our development team, but I cannot require
> everyone to install python in their machines, so I was thinking that
> Py2Exe would help on that.
> 
> The support tools I write are mostly command line driven (no GUI), but
> in the future, I would like to write some expert applications that will
> contain GUI. I was thinking on using wxPython for the GUI, so I was
> wondering how well behaves Py2Exe with the wxPython module.
> 
> Other modules I use besides the standard modules are CTypes and the
> Perforce python module p4.py. I try not to use any of the win32 stuff,
> but I can see how I will have to for some utilitites, so if anyone has
> experience with the win32 modules and Py2Exe, any feedback will be
> highly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Isaac.
> 

I've used py2exe extensively over the last couple of years to package up
everything from console apps to Windows services.  I've found it to work
extremely well and it produces something that is easily distributable on Windows
platform.  In addition to py2exe I also employ Inno Setup
(http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php) to create a Windows installer for my
applications.  Inno can take care of myriad of installation "stuff" that must be
done to make a Windows app easy to distribute for "Windows users".  This
combination works VERY well.

It takes a little practice, but it works just fine with wxPython, win32all
extensions, ctypes, etc.  If I'm not mistaken, author of ctypes (Thomas Heller)
and py2exe are the same person).  I can't speak to Perforce python module as
I've never used it myself.  Start with a small console app and them move on to
more complex applications.  You may want to take a look at the py2exe newsgroup
(gmane.comp.python.py2exe) for any questions.

-Larry Bates