python 2.7 - PyInstaller fails on Windows 7: "Can't find a usable init.tcl"

Question

I have a basic Python script which uses Tkinter.

from Tkinter import Tk
from tkFileDialog import askdirectory
Tk().withdraw()
print askdirectory()

After compiling my script with PyInstaller, I tried to run my program on Windows 7 (64-bit) computer which didn't have Python installed.

It raised this error:

Can't find a usable init.tcl in the following directories: [list of directories]
This probably means that Tcl wasn't installed properly

Why does my script fail to find init.tcl after compiling with PyInstaller?

Answer 1

This is a known issue with PyInstaller and Tkinter on Windows 7 64-bit machines. There is an issue report in the GitHub repository of PyInstaller.

All the way at the bottom this issue was referenced from another issue, namely this one which says that downgrading to PyInstaller 3.1.0 helps other people solve the issue.

pip install pyinstaller==3.1.0

I myself have been able to confirm this using a Virtual Machine.