Which version of MSVC?90.DLL's to distribute with Python 2.6 based Py2exe executables?

[Jonathan Hartley]

On Dec 21, 2:56 pm, Ross Ridge <rri... at csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> Jonathan Hartley  <tart... at tartley.com> wrote:
>
> >Many thanks for that, but my issue is that my programs work fine for
> >me on my computer - but then fail on other people's computers. I'd
> >very strongly prefer for my users to not have to install the MSVCR
> >redistributable installer as well as my program - it would be much
> >better if I could bundle everything up into my py2exe package so that
> >it 'just works' on any Windows computer. So I think that means I'm
> >looking for a stand-alone DLL (or several, plus the manifest file, it
> >sounds like) to bundle up with my py2exe.
>
> Microsoft's documentation describes several possible ways you can
> redistribute the Visual C++ runtime:
>
>        http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235299.aspx
>
> From the sounds of things, if you only have Visual C++ 2008 Express your
> only option may be to use Visual C++ Redistributable Package.
>
>                                 Ross Ridge
>
> --
>  l/  //   Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
> [oo][oo]  rri... at csclub.uwaterloo.ca
> -()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
>  db  //  


Hey. So I think I'm finally getting it.

Am I right to infer that if I want to distribute a py2exe'd
application legally, and have half a chance of it working on a non-
developer's machine, then I have to:

a) Ask my users to run the Visual C++ redistributable installer, as
well as download my program. This is really unfortunate, since one of
the major disadvantages of coding something in Python as opposed to as
a web application is the overhead of asking users to download and
execute anything at all. Asking them to do it twice seems problematic.
Most users would regard this as a deal-breaking hurdle, do you think?

or

b) Buy a copy of Visual Studio in order to acquire the rights to
distribute msvcr.dll (etc.) along with my application.

This is kind of a shame, because it rules out the most obvious and
desirable solution, which would be to distribute the DLLs which are
required to give my Python application half a chance of running on my
target user's PC's, without having to buy Visual Studio.