I am user of a Windows computer without admin rights and just installed Canopy Python from Enthought (and I was really excited that I was able to do this without admin rights). I would now like to install an external package (that is not available in Canopy Python as an academic user). The instructions on the support page from Enthought suggest that to install an external package, we can just open a command window, make sure that Canopy Python is on the SHELL path, and then "follow standard Python installation procedures from the command line," with the suggested approach being to use easy_install. However, as a non-admin, when trying to use easy_install, a dialog box pops up requesting a admin username/password (which I do not have as a regular user). Does anyone know if it is possible to use easy_install as a non-admin or if there is an alternative solution to install external packages for non-admin users for Canopy Python?
Is it possible that you are picking up the easy_install of another Python distribution on your machine?
The default location of easy_install in Canopy is
C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\Enthought\Canopy\User\Scripts\easy_install
Please try using the full address explicitly and see if that works, in theory you should not need admin rights.
Update: The problem is due to one of the heuristics used by Windows UAC to determine if an application requires privilege escalation: If there is the word "setup" or "install" in the name, it will prompt for elevation. (See the answer below by Mona regarding which files to rename.) It's probably easier to rename easy_install, and use it to install pip (easy install pip), and use that instead.
As an update, after searching some more on User Access Control (UAC) on windows (and coming across something that mentioned that having "install" in the name of a program may cause problems, but I do not know for sure if this was the cause of a problem in my case), I just tried the following "hack" which worked for me (but perhaps someone else can suggest a more elegant solution or can provide more feedback as to why this works):
Go to C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\Enthought\Canopy\User\Scripts\
Rename easy_install.exe to easy.exe
Rename easy_install-script.py to easy-script.py
Run "C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Local\Enthought\Canopy\User\Scripts\easy.exe PackageName" from the command line.
(Wait for package to be installed and check for success by opening Canopy Python and trying to import the package.)
Some additional comments: I received an error if I didn't perform step #3 above (renaming the .py file as well). Also, I needed to type the full path to easy.exe in this case from the command line.
This worked for me (and I can use the external package), but again, my guess is that there should be a more "official" solution that does not require renaming easy_install.
Related
So I've read that when installing Visual Studio Code, the User Installer is recommended because it installs to the Users folder and does not require administrator privileges, but apparently it also allows for better background updating of the program.
However, when I try to install the User Installer, I get the following message:
This User Installer is not meant to be run as an Administrator. If you would like to install VS Code for all users in this system, download the System Installer instead.
I tried installing it once before by accepting this, but the title bar of VS Code will show "Administrator," so I'm wondering what was the point of the User Installer if it still warns me of administrator privileges and still installs with them? If it installs to the Users folder, why would it even show this warning message? Is there a way to avoid this?
If not, will this cause any issues, like slowdowns or such? Do I still get the benefit of the smoother updating that the User Installer supposedly gives?
Stealing from this answer, I see that visualstudio.com says:
If you are a current user of the system-wide Windows setup, you will be prompted to install user setup, which we recommend using from now on.
That suggests to me that the error message we've both seen will soon be obsolete.
That is, when the installer sees you logged in as admin (which conventionally means you wouldn't be coding), it assumes you wanted this now-intended-to-be-deprecated use case where you're installing once on the system for ALL users, which the user setup won't do.
You've probably seen installers ask this: "Do you want to install for all users or just your user?" If all users, it asks you to give the installer admin permissions and installs in Program Files. If just you, it installs in a user path (like VS Code for users does: C:\Users\thySmyUserName\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code).
Instead of a unified system/user install, VS Code seems to have broken it into two.
Make sense? If you're installing to code when logged in as admin, like on a remote box or something, that might still be a bit of an admin smell, but the user setup sh/w/ould otherwise be fine.
If you wanted to install for every user on the box, which you could do with your fancy admin permissions, you'd need to get a different installer. That's all.
On a Windows workstation after a recent update of VSCode I'm prompted (recommended) to install a "User Setup Distribution of VSCode for Windows"
The link for more info leads to:
Download User Setup
If you are a current user of the system-wide Windows setup, you will be prompted to switch to the user setup, which we recommend using from now on. Don't worry, all your settings and extensions will be kept during the transition.
I don't see anything that explains what changes this distribution makes or how it's different from a distribution for other platforms, like X11/linux.
Code is a great editor, so I use it on various platforms depending where I am. Where is the explanation of what is included in this updated "Distribution"?
https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_26#_user-setup-for-windows
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VSCode User Setup is a new installer, with a new install strategy, which installs the whole executable for VSCode and its dependencies in directories which don't require system-level / administrator permissions to modify. This allows a few things:
Users who don't have admin privileges to their workstation can still install and use VS Code
VS Code can perform its updates with fewer prompts (basically without the system-level privilege escalation prompts)
One tip: If you already had VSCode installed as a system-wide installation and you switch to the new installer as prompted/recommended, the User Setup installer will suggest that you uninstall the system-wide install first. I was a little nervous that I might lose my extensions doing this, but I went ahead and tried it and am happy to report that my extensions, recent projects, and other data regarding my VSCode use remained intact between uninstalling the "old" version and then proceeding with install of the new User Setup version.
(I'm a first time responder after many years.)
Note there is another useful discussion on this subject at: (What is the migration procedure for moving from Windows system-wide Visual Studio Code to user setup?). I too got worried when I got unexpected messages from the install informing me that the version was already installed and asking me if I wanted to continue? I clicked NO, why continue if it is already installed. However, in the process I became aware of the distinction between 'distribution' and 'version'. It turns out that the install works pretty much flawlessly no matter how you go about it. You can delete the system-wide distribution or not. If you do delete, you can delete before the new install, (which I did). You can also delete after the new install. (I didn't read too closely but there might be an extra step if you want to use both distributions.) In hindsight, since all approaches work nearly flawlessly, a minimal amount of instruction is all that was required. But in foresight, a little extra information on what to expect would have expedited the process for several people, including me. P.S. I found the answers in this thread useful. Thanks.
From the page you link to:
This setup does not require Administrator privileges to install. It also provides a smoother background update experience.
I've had many questions about Python for which a suggested answer is often "use virtualenv", but I have a (lovingly maintained and perfectly functioning) Python installation that I'm loath to disturb.
I want to be absolutely sure, so I'll ask twice: Does use of virtualenv in any way disturb my "real" Python installation? Using virtualenv does not in any way modify the files or paths in my "real" installation, right?
Virtualenv creates separated Python environment. Python interpreter is linked from one of system-installed that you choose creating virtualenv( --python commandline switch) and, optionally, wheater use or not system site-packages (--system-site-packages).
All packages that you install using virtualenv remains only on virtualenv directory site-packages folder and do not mess system packages.
I want compile some GUI into a Windows standalone application (*.exe). The main idea is run my applications in different computers WITHOUT the necessity of privileges to run it.
While doing these steps, I noticed that when I want to run vcredist_x86.exe on a different computer administrator privileges are required. I asked in the official forum and they confirmed that is not possible.
There was also other interesting alternative with an older version here:
How can I install the Matlab Component Runtime without Administrator rights when using MATLAB Compiler 4.6 (R2007a)
Despite the fact that now there is no supported way, until which Matlab version was it possible run standalone apps without privileges?
My version is 2010b but I can use the most recent version which support the possibility to run MCR without privileges. I have Matlab compiler but not Matlab code generator (to automatic translate into another language).
Matlab user executables require Microsoft DLLs to run. No Matlab version is going to be able to run user executables without the required Microsoft DLLs. One cannot install DLLs to Windows owned directories without admin privileges. This is a configuration issue not a Matlab runtime issue. Solution is to install the required DLLs to the local folder that has the user application in it. Ignore all the stuff in the docs about "network redributables" and "registering" DLLs.
I don't know if it is possible to run vcredist_x86.exe without privileges. It may be a matter of setting the install path to your local directory instead of "Program_Files...". Either way it doesn't matter as vcredist_x86.exe should not be necessary.
I don't know if what you trying to do is possible or if Matlab has blocked it somehow but I think you have gotten confused on how to get there and have compounded your problems by trying to install to non-user directories.
I can't seem to find a good script or anything to use for installing Firebird (the InterBase-decendent RDBMS) using InstallShield. There is a way to silently install it using the firebird install executable, but I don't know enough about InstallShieldscripts to be able to do it! If anyone knows any information on
a) how to execute an exe from InstallShield
b) how to install firebord using InstallShield
I would be very appreciative! Thanks a lot, Matt
You should probably reword your question to get answers about how to execute an external program using command line parameters in an InstallShield script. Maybe the documentation would have enough info on that already.
Regarding the installation of Firebird, please have a look at this document which comes with the Firebird installation and shows all available switches for the Firebird setup executable. If you don't want the user to see that your program is installing Firebird you should probably use the /SP-, the /VERYSILENT and /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES switches. Other switches worth looking into are /NOICONS to suppress the creation of a program group in the start menu, and /COMPONENTS=... to install only what is absolutely necessary for your program to function.
Please note that installing Firebird is only a part of what you should do. For clear separation from other programs using Firebird you should create a new Firebird user account with password, and it's always a good idea to add an alias for your database to the aliases.conf file.