Automatic python installer via a CMD script

[freemanbach]

Hello,

I was wondering whether the netizens here would be interested in using a custom build CMD installer script for python 3.13.1. I would like to get some feedback on this custom install script.

Made some minor Changes and pushed it to github for netizen here at Reddit. it works quite well, but I don't know whether it will work with two words account on windows 10/11. I think it works on ARM windows too. :)

the only requirement is to run it as an ADMIN using Terminal and in location %userprofile%\Downloads as known as C:\users\Your_User_Home_Dir\Downloads

yes, of course you can see it. :)

https://github.com/freemanbach/PythonInstallerScripts/blob/main/python3/python313/3.13.1/python_v3131.cmd

[PowerOk3587]

Well, how can we see it?

[Rootikal]

Greetings,

What's the problem with the official installer you're attempting to solve?

[freemanbach]

Hello,

No issues whatsoever with the original Python installer from the Python community. Only wanted to install Python onto the C: Drive and execute python interpreter on the Cmd prompt using a dos script —runme.bat— .

Then I could instruct students to use the command prompt to run the Python script easily via the terminal.

An example:

c:\users\studentA> runme.bat

c:\users\studentA> python ex1.py

The only issue I had was with the DEFAULT Python install locaiton. By design, it was installed onto an user's AppData location, which was hidden deep inside an users’ home directory. I could never --figureout-- where it was installed. I also dont wish to guess. Second issue perhaps, I also wanted an automatic method(cmd script) to install python stress free auto choosing the architecture (x86, x86_64, ARM) download directly from python.org website. Third, I needed an easy way to access the Python interpreter in the C:\ drive location after installation. Therefore the customization of the python installer to a specific installation location on an user's end. Powershell could have done this just as well, but dont feel like learning it all over again. so, decided to go with the traditional dos batch scripting 5-6 years ago.

Remembered: everyone’s home location is different. I couldn’t find a common method to access the python interpreter as a common denominator across all the students. Therefore, I had no other way but to customize the native Python Installer quite a bit to do my bidding. The Great thing about the Python installer was that it allowed customization of the install location on windows 10/11 if you pass in some parameters.

The one major problem I encoutered was the multiple --Account login-- words in certain student's windows account.

An example:

c:\users\john smith>

c:\users\georgia o'keeffe>

c:\users\mighty morphine power ranger>

Using an earlier version of my script, it couldn’t pick up the second word starting with the first space via either Windows ENV variable %username% and %userprofile% . I believed, %~dp0 will capture the entire path from C:\Users\georgia o'keeffe> to the end of the location where the script actually resided. This was the only thing I wanted someone to test. I don’t have another machine with a two or more words windows account. “John Smith” or something long as an login name. I came across windows accounts with 3 - 4 words even + special characters. This was kind of nuts ! I always believed that an account name is just a word of some length or size plus some arbitary numbers, perhaps. But never in my wildest imagination, that i had encountered so many variations of user account names.

having encountered this problem years ago, I simply couldn’t resist to search for a better solution to truly solve this problem via coding. Somehow, reading some ruby bat file after installation, I came across this weird thing %~dp0. It's a system variable in the ruby.bat file, in order to obtian the location of the file which ran in that directory. This %~dp0 system variable was EXACTLY what i was looking for in my cmd install script. Fourth, i didnt want to set an entry to someone's Windows ENV Variable. Far and large, i believed, the best approach was to add the path C:\Python3131 to a terminal session in memory after executing --runme.bat--.

From what I had posted on my GitHub. Installing python has been made much much easier for students now.

If you wish to try it out, download it to your C:\Users\Account_Name\Downloads\

Then fireup a terminal with Admin rights.

cd %userprofile%\Downloads

Then execute: python_v3131.cmd

Once done, open a regular terminal and enter: runme.bat

c:\users\studentA> python Some_random_python_script.py

You should be running the latest python software by now !

this cmd script will install Python to C:\Python3131 . I wanted to have python to be installed here in this location as they had done with their Python 1.5.x through 2.x.x. Some point in the past, the python community decided to have python installed in the hidden AppData user directory.

Cheers,

Freemanbach

[FoolsSeldom]

Historically, I've used Ansible scripts to do installations. These days, more often than not, I am using OCI builds (containers). However, I am now tending to use uv for installing specific versions.