HOWTO: windows shortcut / icon for python script with arguments

Sometimes you may want to create a shortcut / double-clickable icon for a Python script and pass in some arguments. While this should work on Windows out of the box (after installing Python of course) it doesn't always work.

INSTALLING PYTHON

Make sure that you have a version of Python installed. The typical installation path for Python on Windows is directly in C: not in C:\Programm Files. If you don't have python yet, get a copy at python.org/getit.

TEST SCRIPT

The script

Use Notepad to create hello.py on the Desktop, here are the contents:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import time, sys

if __name__ == '__main__':
	print "hello world", sys.argv
	time.sleep(10)

Right click on the icon of hello.py and check Properties->Opens with setting. To be sure, you may want to click Change...->Browse... and select the python executable. Set the checkmark Always use the selected program to open this kind of file.

Passing arguments

Lets create a shortcut that passes some arguments to the script.

hello.py -> Right click -> Create Shortcut
Shortcut to hello.py -> Right click -> Properties

Add --somevalue at the end of Target

"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\hello.py" --somevalue

Click Apply

Double clicking on Shortcut to hello.py should now bring up a console window displaying something similar to

hello world ['C:\\Documents and Settings\\Administrator\\Desktop\\hello.py", '--somevalue']

If this works including the --somevalue output you are all done. Otherwise, read on to the interesting part.

TROUBLE SHOOTING

Check file associations

In a console (i.e. Start->Run...->cmd) check that the file associations are correct:

C:\>assoc .py
.py=Python.File

C:\>ftype Python.File
Python.File="C:\Python27\python.exe" "%1" %*

The path to Python shown must obviously match the installation path. Important: Make sure there's an %* at the end, else arguments will not be forwarded to python. For more details see Microsoft Technet: Ftype.

Check registry

Some users have encountered problems even so the file associations were correct when checked in a shell. You can double check in the registry (i.e. Start->Run...->regedit):

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\python26.exe\shell\open\command

must end with %* as in

"C:\Python27\python.exe" "%1" %*

LINKS:

(c) joachim(et)buechse.ch. This description is in the public domain.