PyInstaller not supported

[Anisse Ezzebdi (AnisseEzzebdi)]

Hello community, I developped a Desktop GUI application (with tkinter) that connects to a SQL Server database through ODBC Driver 18. I use pyodbc for that matter, and PyInstaller to create the executable from the Python script file, and it always works.
But when I wanted to switch to mssql-python, the EXE created could not even open, and the unhandled exception [WinError 3] error message states that the system cannot find the path specified of mssql_python, so I switched back to pyodbc.

My OS: Windows 11
My Python version: 3.14.8 (soon 3.15.0)
My command: pyinstaller --onefile --windowed --clean --noupx Desktop_GUI_app.py

Any ideas?

[Animesh Kumar (CaptainAni187)]

PyInstaller usually doesn't pick up everything mssql-python needs on its own. The package ships native parts (mssql_python/ddbc_bindings*.pyd, a bundled msvcp140.dll, plus the separate mssql_py_core package), and there's no PyInstaller hook for it, so the exe ends up missing files and fails with that "path not found" error.

Try telling PyInstaller to grab both packages completely:

pyinstaller --collect-all mssql_python --collect-all mssql_py_core app.py

(or the same thing as collect_all(...) in your .spec file). That pulls in the binaries and data files along with the Python code. If it still fails, building with --onedir first and checking whether an mssql_python folder ends up inside _internal makes it easy to see what's still missing.

[Ashwini (ashswin-git)]

This is a packaging problem, not a limitation of mssql-python. PyInstaller just doesn't pick up two things the package loads at runtime:

1. The native extension ddbc_bindings.cpXY-amd64.pyd. mssql_python/ddbc_bindings.py doesn't import it the normal way. It lists the package folder (os.listdir(os.path.dirname(__file__))) and loads the .pyd by its file path. In a frozen app that folder doesn't exist inside the bundle, so os.listdir fails, and that is your [WinError 3] The system cannot find the path specified ... mssql_python.
2. The ODBC driver DLLs. These ship in a separate dependency, mssql-python-odbc (mssql_python_odbc/libs/windows/x64/msodbcsql18.dll, mssql-auth.dll, ...). That package is imported dynamically, and the DLLs are found by path, so PyInstaller's import analysis never sees them. If you fix only step 1, you get Failed to load the driver the first time you connect.

pyodbc works because it's a plain extension module, and it uses the ODBC Driver 18 you installed system-wide.

Bundle both explicitly (PowerShell, inside the venv you build from):

$pyd = python -c "import glob, importlib.util, os; d = os.path.dirname(importlib.util.find_spec('mssql_python').origin); print(glob.glob(os.path.join(d, 'ddbc_bindings.*.pyd'))[0])"

pyinstaller --onefile --windowed --clean --noupx `
  --collect-all mssql_python `
  --collect-all mssql_python_odbc `
  --add-binary "$pyd;mssql_python" `
  Desktop_GUI_app.py

• --collect-all mssql_python_odbc copies the driver DLLs, keeping the libs\windows\x64\... layout that the loader expects.
• --add-binary ...;mssql_python puts the .pyd back into an mssql_python folder inside the bundle, which is where find_module_path() looks for it.
• If you opt into the Rust provider (mssql-odbc / mssql_py_core), add --collect-all mssql_py_core too.

I checked the same thing on Linux with mssql-python 1.15.0 and PyInstaller 6.22. A plain --onefile build fails with exactly this "no such file or directory .../mssql_python" error. With the native module and the driver libs bundled as above, the frozen exe imports mssql_python and loads the driver: a test connect to a closed port gets as far as the driver's TCP error. I haven't run it on Windows, but the Windows wheel has the same layout (ddbc_bindings.cp314-amd64.pyd plus mssql_python_odbc\libs\windows\x64).

If you use a .spec file, this is the equivalent:

from PyInstaller.utils.hooks import collect_all
import glob, importlib.util, os

datas, binaries, hiddenimports = [], [], []
for pkg in ("mssql_python", "mssql_python_odbc"):
    d, b, h = collect_all(pkg)
    datas += d; binaries += b; hiddenimports += h

pkg_dir = os.path.dirname(importlib.util.find_spec("mssql_python").origin)
binaries += [(p, "mssql_python") for p in glob.glob(os.path.join(pkg_dir, "ddbc_bindings.*.pyd"))]
# pass datas / binaries / hiddenimports to Analysis(...)

Longer term, a hook in pyinstaller-hooks-contrib, or a note in the README, would let this work without any flags.