bootstrapping on machines without Python

[Thomas Heller]

M.-A. Lemburg schrieb:
> Jonathan Hartley wrote:
>> While examining py2exe et al of late, my thoughts keep returning to
>> the idea of writing, in C or similar, a compiled stand-alone
>> executable 'bootstrapper', which:
>> 1) downloads and install a Python interpreter if none exists
>> 2) runs the application's Python source code using this interpreter.
>> 
>> An application source code could be distributed with this small exe to
>> wrap its top level 'main.py', and the application could then be run on
>> machines which do not (yet) have Python installed.
>> 
>> The goal of this is to provide a way for end-users to download and
>> double-click a Python application, without having to know what Python
>> is or whether (an appropriate version of) it is installed. This method
>> has some disadvantages compared to using py2exe et al, but it has the
>> advantage that a small application would remain small: there is no
>> need to bundle a whole interpreter with every application.
> 
> There are two major issues with such an approach:
> 
>  * users will not necessarily like it if a small application
>    downloads a several MB from the web somewhere without asking
> 
>  * installing applications on Windows typically requires admin
>    rights or at least user interaction
> 
> I think a good solution to the problem is wrapping the application's
> main.py in a batch file which pops up a window to let the user know
> that s/he will need to install Python first and point him/her to the
> www.python.org web site, if necessary.

Here is a batch file that simulates a similar approach,
for demonstration purposes it doesn't download and install python,
instead it simply copies 'c:\python25\python.exe' to the current directory
under a different name (if it is not yet present), and executes the script with it.
Batchfile experts should also be able to improve other things:

<snip>
@echo off && if exist py_exe.exe (py_exe.exe -x %0 %* && goto exit) else (goto download)
# The python script
import sys
print "Hi, this is Python", sys.version
sys.exit()

# rest of the batch file
"""
:download
echo Simulating download...
copy c:\python25\python.exe py_exe.exe
echo Done.
REM start the script again after downloading
%0 %*

:exit
rem """
</snip>

Thomas