py2exe is a distutils extension which allows to build standalone Windows executable programs (32-bit and 64-bit) from Python scripts; Python 3.3 and later are supported. It can build console executables, windows (GUI) executables, windows services, and DLL/EXE COM servers.

py2exe for Python 2 is still available at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=15583.

News The C-runtime library for Python 3 does NOT need a windows manifest any longer to load correctly (this is a feature of Python, not of py2exe). py2exe now contains a hooks module which contains information about some standard packages. The goal is to fine-tune the build process so that no (at least less) warnings are emitted from modulefinder. Thanks to a brand new modulefinder (based on Python’s importlib) py2exe can now find and extract modules even from packages you have installed as zipped eggs. py2exe now longer uses a build directory for temporary files. It is planned to achive full compatibility with the setup-scripts for Python 2; however this is probably not yet the case. In addition to your beloved setup.py scripts :-), there is now also a command-line utility which allows to build the exe without any effort. Running py -3.4 -m py2exe.build_exe myscript.py or (if you have the Python Scripts directory on your PATH): build_exe myscript.py will create an executable myscript.exe in the dist subdirectory. If you add the -W <setup-script.py> switch to the above command line a commented setup.py script will be generated which can be used to further customize the exe: py -3.4 -m py2exe myscript.py -W mysetup.py ... edit myssetup.py py -3.4 mysetup.py py2exe

Installation py -3.4 -m pip install py2exe or pip install py2exe

Using the builder Build runtime archive for a script: build_exe [-h] [-i modname] [-x modname] [-p package_name] [-O] [-s] [-r] [-f modname] [-v] [-c] [-d DESTDIR] [-l LIBNAME] [-b {0,1,2,3}] [-W setup_path] [-svc service] [script [script ...]] positional arguments: script optional arguments: -h , --help show this help message and exit -i modname , --include modname module to include -x modname , --exclude modname module to exclude -p package_name , --package package_name module to exclude -O , --optimize use optimized bytecode -s , --summary print a single line listing how many modules were found and how many modules are missing -r , --report print a detailed report listing all found modules, the missing modules, and which module imported them. -f modname , --from modname print where the module <modname> is imported. -v verbose output -c , --compress create a compressed library -d DESTDIR , --dest DESTDIR destination directory -l LIBNAME , --library LIBNAME relative pathname of the python archive -b option , --bundle-files option How to bundle the files: 3 - create script.exe, python.dll, extensions.pyd, others.dll. 2 - create script.exe, python.dll, others.dll. 1 - create script.exe, others.dll. 0 - create script.exe. -W setup_path , --write-setup-script setup_path Do not build the executables; instead write a setup script that allows further customizations of the build process. -svc svnmodule, –service svcmodule The name of a module that contains a service

Using a setup-script Creating an executable (or more than one at the same time) with a setup-script works in the same way as for Python 2. The command-line switches are the same as before; but they are NOT compatible with the command-line switches for the builder mentioned above. Documentation about the setup-script and other usage tips are in the wiki pages at http://www.py2exe.org.

The bundle-files option explained The applications that py2exe creates will always need the following parts: The exe-file(s) itself. py2exe can build several executables at the same time; this is especially useful if these are related to each other since some parts can be shared. The python-dll. The pure python modules needed to run the app. The byte-code for these modules is always packed into a zip-archive. Compiled python-extension modules. Supporting dlls, if any. The bundle-files option determines how these files are packed together for your application. This is explained with a script test_sqlite.py that simply contains this code: import sqlite3 print(sqlite3) The command to build the exe-file is: py2exe.build_exe test_sqlite.py -c --bundle-files <option> The -c option specifies to create a compressed zip-archive. --bundle-files 3 is the simplest way. These files will be created in a dist subdirectory, about 8 MB total size: test_sqlite.exe _bz2.pyd _ctypes.pyd _hashlib.pyd _lzma.pyd _socket.pyd _sqlite3.pyd _ssl.pyd _win32sysloader.pyd pyexpat.pyd python34.dll pywintypes34.dll select.pyd sqlite3.dll unicodedata.pyd win32api.pyd win32evtlog.pyd The zip-archive is appended to the test_sqlite.exe file itself, which has a size of 1.5 MB in this case. --bundle-files 2 will include all the Python extensions into the appended zip-archive; they are loaded via special code at runtime without being unpacked to the file-system. The files in the dist directory now are these: test_sqlite.exe python34.dll sqlite3.dll --bundle-files 1 will additionally pack the python-dll into the zip-archive: test_sqlite.exe sqlite3.dll --bundle-files 0 now finally creates a real single-file executable of 6 MB: test_sqlite.exe If you are building several related executables that you plan to distribute together, it may make sense to specify a zip-archive shared by all the exes with the --library libname option. The executables will then become quite small (about 25 kB), since nearly all code will be in the separate shared archive. Note that not all applications will work with ``bundle-files`` set to 0 or 1. Be sure to test them.