How Do I Get This Drag-and-Drop Behaviour Back?

I just (finally!) upgraded Python from 2.6 to 2.7, and also installed 3.2 in parallel. I am running Windows Vista.

Before, I could drag-and-drop onto a .py file to run the script, with the dragged file's name appearing in sys.argv. I did nothing to get this behaviour; it worked as soon as Python 2.6 was installed.

It no longer works: the .py file is not recognized as a valid drop target.

I tried this registry hack, which I also found by searching on Google (getting a few scattered references, including an old mailing list thread on python.org). It accomplished exactly nothing, even after restarting the computer. I also shouldn't have to do this anyway, since I didn't have to last time.

What is going on? How can I fix it? I really miss having this behaviour.

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1 Answer

Is it possible that this is a bitness problem, where you are using a 64-bit Explorer, but have installed the 32-bit version of python ? In this case the 64-bit Explorer may not work.

If you have installed Windows 64-bit, you can still test this theory by dropping a file on a .py script using the 32-bit Explorer, which is invoked using this command-line :

%Systemroot%\SysWOW64\explorer.exe /separate

[EDIT]

Since you say that this is not the case, then I can only offer as workaround to compile the .py scripts to .exe by using a tool such as py2exe :

py2exe is a Python Distutils extension which converts Python scripts into executable Windows programs, able to run without requiring a Python installation.

Question: Did you install python using its installer ?

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David Miller

David Miller

Executive Financial & Market Analyst

David Miller brings 15 years of experience in global economics, personal finance strategy, and market dynamics. He specializes in turning complex economic trends into actionable insights for everyday readers.

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