I have converted a python project into an exe file using pyinstaller. The basic functionality in the python project is to read files, parse the file contents, and write them into an excel document. The exe file works perfectly fine in my system as I have generated, but when I distribute this exe file to other systems, McAfee antivirus deletes the exe file by displaying the message as "Access denied".
How to handle this situation? I have tried both the commands for pyinstaller and also the auto-py-to-exe tool. But nothing works.
I have also informed the IT team, but they say, there is a potential threat in the exe file.
In issues on GitHub mentioning 'virus' in the PyInstaller repo htgoebel repeatedly states:
Please contact you anti-virus vendor. There is nothing we can do about this false positive.
If your anti-virus vendor considers one of the files included in the PyInstaller distribution or a file generated by PyInstaller to be malicious, there is nothing we can do about this. Even if we'd change our code, they'd change their pattern and the race starts again.
See this mailing-list thread and other tickets for his topic.
So when asking "How to handle this situation?", there isn't much you can do. Like htgoebel said, you can't control what anti-virus vendors match and changing what/how PyInstaller outputs will just be matched to be flagged again later.
You possibly could change to a different anti-virus vendor but that may be out of your control and you'll still have the issue when the package is distributed.
PyInstaller does seem to be the most popular choice for converting a python script into an exe, but there are other choices:
How do I convert a Python program to a runnable .exe Windows program?
When I wasn't able to get around this problem in PyInstaller, I looked for a different tool. I chose cx-freeze over py2exe simply because it had more recent commits on github. It worked great:
python -m pip install cx_Freeze
python -m cx_Freeze test.py
cd build\exe.win-amd64-3.10
test.exe
Output:
Hello world
In case the PyInstaller devs care, my anti virus is CrowdStrike Falcon.
Related
I created a data-miner GUI for twitter with kivy and am currently having a lot of trouble turning it into an exe. I tried following this video and import glew and sdl2 into my spec but after doing pyinstaller main.spec, my executable still would not open.
Is it because I have more than one files and folders for my program (here is the link to the github repo for my project), if so, how do you deal with that?
In addition, if I manage to success create a working exe, how do I create an exe installer that other people can use to install the executable?
Making an executable from a complex script like yours may become quite frustrating because of its dependencies. But I'm giving you a brief guide about what you need to follow to achieve your goal.
Create your main.spec file with console-mode enabled to see the exact error message for the app. (make sure to remove --noconsole from PyInstaller command or set console=True in spec file). Also use --no-upx in the build command to remove compression from output file (this helps with omitting some DLLs which may cause issues).
You need to make sure that every external module you used can pack correctly. I don't think you get any problem with either Kivy or Tweepy. But if you get any missing import error, try to check the solution for each one by searching the pattern [module] pyinstaller.
Your app has external resources like images, files, etc., which must be added to the packed executable and load properly. I wrote an answer about this here.
If you want a standalone executable, you need to use -F with PyInstaller command, which is more robust than using an installer to gather files in one directory mode.
So I'm using pyinstaller with python27, and my exe works great so long as it's in the same directory as the build folder. I need it to be a completely standalone exe, without any dependencies, is there a way to bundle the important things from the build folder into one file? Neither -F nor --onefile seems to do this.
Edit: as I explain in my answer below, I thought pyinstaller was the problem because the exe would only run in the dist folder, so I assumed it had dependencies there, but in reality, it was running and then instantly crashing due to a bug that only triggered when the exe was on the desktop.
I figured out that the reason it wasn't working had nothing to do with pyinstaller or dlls. The exe was opening, and and trying to input powershell commands via python like it was supposed to. Unfortunately I had a line of code that said this:
subprocess.check_output('schtasks /create /sc minute /mo ' + str(time) + ' /tn "test_process_to_run_every_'+str(time)+'_min" /tr //'+sys.argv[0],shell=True)
#set this exe to run every X minutes in windows scheduled tasks
the problem was that sys.argv[0] changed when I put the exe on the desktop, and ended up being a path that looked like C://Users/John Smith/Desktop. The space in between John and Smith made powershell mad and crashed the program, so I escaped it using this line of code:
path = sys.argv[0].replace(" ","^")
and then I replaced sys.argv[0] with my new path variable. Hope this helps anyone in the future trying to do the same thing.
after pyinstaller has converted your script into .exe, than you need to add the executable to path, otherwise you have to open the command line in the directory that the file is in. pyinstaller just puts your script and py interpretor into a single file. same goes for linux.
for dependency side, look here.
there are other options you can try to bbFreeze, py2exe, cx_Freeze
to use pyinstaller in a simple way:
pyinstaller --onefile your_file.py
now you should see couple of files build, dist(exe in here).
NOTE: that --onefile flag doesn't necessarily get rid of the need for it to have link with certain libraries, it will still need those in order to run.
prepare for distribution, first need to get a spec file:
to get a spec file:
pyinstaller --noconsole your_file.py
than you can get the exe file for distribution like so:
pyinstaller your_file.spec
for more info and tutorial look here
see if nuitka works for you, it might sound scary but it is not. it compiles your code to executable binary format. Be aware that under the hood first it converts to c++ API calls.
if you dont like that for closed source program use Cython, and for no dependency use py2exe
I'm trying to convert .py to .exe , but I'm not able to convert it with the help of py2exe in the command line.
I searched on the internet about a py2exe with a GUI frontend and I got the results as:
GUI2EXE (3/5) (The best one I found, but the .exe comes with lots of .dll files and the .exe file is buggy and doesn't work properly.)
H-two-O (2/5) (Waste of time. Doesn't compile any .exe files associated with Tkinter. Very creative and useful for other file formats.)
PytoEXE (1.3/5) (Just as H-two-O , but doesn't compile Tkinter files to .exe)
GP2EXE (?/5) (I didn't try it out. Maybe you can give a view on it.)
PyBuilder (2.7/5) (Reliable, good GUI interface with options but lacks some of the features and compiling speed to that of GUI2EXE.)
PythontoEXE (1.3/5) (Same as PytoEXE)
But these weren't good. I need a compiler better than all of the compilers listed above which can compile Tkinter files to .exe without any bugs.
Here's how I use py2exe. I know this isn't what you're asking for, but according to my experience, it's really annoying until it works. So please hear me out.
Assuming your Python file is called main.py.
New file setup.py (same folder):
from distutils.core import setup
import py2exe
setup(console=['main.py'])
From here, you can create a .bat file in the same folder, or run it from the command line. Either way, you'll be running python setup.py py2exe to compile the code.
EDIT: I found out that the error is that the resources couldn't be opened. Copying the directory into the folder where the .exe is didn't fix it. I tried removing the resources from the .spec file and the size of the .exe file is now 9 MB as opposed to 52 MB so I'm pretty sure the resources are included, but somehow they can't seem to be opened by the .exe. In case anything is wrong with it, This is my .spec file - I only modified the Tree thing to include the resources, the .exe filename and icon.
In other words, the question now is: Why can't the exe find my game resources, and what do I have to do to fix that? Also, I realised my resources folder has two subfolders - does that mean I have to go about writing the Tree differently?
I've made a game in Python (using Pygame, too) and want to make a single executable file so I can distribute it. PyInstaller seemed perfect for that, and eventually, after a while of searching, I found out how to get it working in this guide. After I tweaked my code to get step 2 working I created the .spec file, added the directory with the resources to it (as in step 5, and including the font file), copied it to the same folder the .spec file was in and finally I ran
build.py game.spec
and I found the .exe file exactly where it was supposed to be. However, when I open it, it just closes again after a few seconds, and I think it's just before the main menu shows up. I'm not really sure it's a font screw-up again though because I made sure to include it in the resources as well...
Unfortunately, searching for a solution on the web didn't help me at all, especially because half the links to the project are broken now.
If anyone knows what's gone wrong here (or needs more details) please let me know.
Details:
Python version: 2.7.7 32 bit
Pygame version: 1.9.3 32 bit
PyInstaller version: 1.5 32 bit
System: Windows 8.1 64 bit (the 32 bit programs have all worked fine so far though)
Try to open command prompt and drag exe into it and press enter, that way you will catch the error (if there is any) and then update your question, more info == more help.
I never used pyinstaller so I can't really help you on that.
Also I suggest you to try py2exe, it worked nicely with pygame (at least for me) and later you can make setup with NSIS or Inno.
Edit:
If the .exe can't permanently save the highscores (as you said in comment below) try running exe as admin, it might be just matter of write privileges , or maybe it is your antivirus who doesn't allow it to write (sandbox at Avast, unknown/rare file at Norton).
I didn't find out what the problem was but I did manage to get it working. I started by installing the newer version of PyInstaller (2.1) with pip and completing the same steps again, but this time in the Scripts directory and running pyi-makespec and pyi-build instead of makespec.py and build.py because that's how the new version works, I guess. At first it would still complain about the resources being missing unless I ran it from cmd, but I think that was actually because I forgot step 5 (Tree in the makespec file). For some reason now the .exe can't permanently save the highscores, but apart from that it's working perfectly.
This question already has answers here:
Create a single executable from a Python project [closed]
(3 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I wrote a script that will help a Windows user in her daily life. I want to simply send her the .exe and not ask her to install python, dlls or have to deal with any additional files.
I've read plenty of the stackoverflow entries regarding compiling Python scripts into executable files. I am a bit confused as there are many options but some seem dated (no updates since 2008) and none were simple enough for me not to be asking this right now after a few hours spent on this.
I'm hoping there's a better, up-to-date way to do this.
I looked into:
pylunch
py2exe
cx_Freeze
py2app (only for Mac)
pyinstaller
bbfreeze
but either I couldn't get them to work or couldn't understand how to get the result I need. The closest I got was with py2exe but it still gave me the MSVCR71.dll
I would appreciate a step-by-step answer as I was also unable to follow some of the tweaking answers here that require some prior understanding of how to use py2exe or some of the other tools.
I'm using Python 2.5 as one of the modules is only available for that version.
PyInstaller will create a single-file executable if you use the --onefile option (though what it actually does is extracts then runs itself).
There's a simple PyInstaller tutorial here. If you have any questions about using it, please post them...
Using py2exe, include this in your setup.py:
from distutils.core import setup
import py2exe, sys, os
sys.argv.append('py2exe')
setup(
options = {'py2exe': {'bundle_files': 1}},
windows = [{'script': "YourScript.py"}],
zipfile = None,
)
then you can run it through command prompt / Idle, both works for me. Hope it helps
i would recommend going to http://sourceforge.net/projects/py2exe/files/latest/download?source=files to download py2exe. Then make a python file named setup.py.
Inside it, type
from distutils.core import setup
import py2exe
setup(console=['nameoffile.py'])
Save in your user folder
Also save the file you want converted in that same folder
Run window's command prompt
type in setup.py install py2exe
It should print many lines of code...
Next, open the dist folder.
Run the exe file.
If there are needed files for the program to work, move them to the folder
Copy/Send the dist folder to person.
Optional: Change the name of the dist folder
Hope it works!:)
I would join #Nicholas in recommending PyInstaller (with the --onefile flag), but be warned: do not use the "latest release", PyInstaller 1.3 -- it's years old. Use the "pre-release" 1.4, download it here -- or even better the code from the svn repo -- install SVN and run svn co http://svn.pyinstaller.org/trunk pyinstaller.
As #Nicholas implies, dynamic libraries cannot be run from the same file as the rest of the executable -- but fortunately they can be packed together with all the rest in a "self-unpacking" executable that will unpack itself into some temporary directory as needed; PyInstaller does a good job at this (and at many other things -- py2exe is more popular, but pyinstaller in my opinion is preferable in all other respects).
1) Get py2exe from here, according to your Python version.
2) Make a file called "setup.py" in the same folder as the script you want to convert, having the following code:
from distutils.core import setup
import py2exe
setup(console=['myscript.py']) #change 'myscript' to your script
3) Go to command prompt, navigate to that folder, and type:
python setup.py py2exe
4) It will generate a "dist" folder in the same folder as the script. This folder contains the .exe file.
you may want to see if your app can run under IronPython. If so, you can compile it to an exe
http://www.codeplex.com/IronPython
You can create executable from python script using NSIS (Nullsoft scriptable install system). Follow the below steps to convert your python files to executable.
Download and install NSIS in your system.
Compress the folder in the .zip file that you want to export into the executable.
Start NSIS and select Installer based on ZIP file. Find and provide a path to your compressed file.
Provide your Installer Name and Default Folder path and click on Generate to generate your exe file.
Once its done you can click on Test to test executable or Close to complete the process.
The executable generated can be installed on the system and can be distributed to use this application without even worrying about installing the required python and its packages.
For a video tutorial follow: How to Convert any Python File to .EXE
You could create an installer for you EXE file by:
1. Press WinKey + R
2. Type "iexpress" (without quotes) into the run window
3. Complete the wizard for creating the installation program.
4. Distribute the completed EXE.