Install Python on Windows without Start Menu icons?

[snorble]

On Dec 5, 2:01 am, Wolfgang Strobl <ne... at mystrobl.de> wrote:
> "Pedro Henrique G. Souto" <pedro.h.so... at gmail.com>:
>
> >On 02/12/2011 16:34, snorble wrote:
> >> Is it possible to automate the Python installation on Windows using
> >> the MSI file so it does not add a Start Menu folder? I would like to
> >> push out Python to all of my office workstations, but I'd like for it
> >> to be relatively silent from the user's point of view.
>
> >If you just want to run python scripts in those machines (not developing
> >in it), you can use something like py2exe [http://www.py2exe.org/].
>
> That doesn't answer the question.
>
> Snorble might use  "ORCA", a MSI editor from Microsoft.
>
> http://forums.frontmotion.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=837
>
> discusses a similar question for Firefox.
>
> I haven't tried it myself, but would give it a try.
>
> --
> Thank you for observing all safety precautions

Thank you! I got it working using Orca. Initially I had removed all of
the rows from the Shortcut table and saved the .msi file, but the
resulting .msi file was only about 600 KB (the original .msi file is
about 15 MB). I had to create a .mst transform file, and that allows
Python to install without any Start Menu entries.

For reference, here's what I did. I opened the python-2.7.2.msi file
in Orca, then click the Transform menu, then New Transform. Then go to
the Shortcut table and highlight all of the entries and press the
Delete key, and acknowledge that it will delete all of the rows. Then
click the Transform menu and click Generate Transform and save it
(python-2.7.2-no-icons.mst in my case).

Once you have the .mst file, you can install it from the command line:

msiexec /i python-2.7.2.msi TRANSFORMS=python-2.7.2-no-icons.mst

Or to silently install:

msiexec /qn /i python-2.7.2.msi TRANSFORMS=python-2.7.2-no-icons.mst