node.dll missing on Windows

[rhedin]

Hi. I built the electron-quick-start application on my Mac El Capitan. I packaged it using electron-packager 6.0.2. The application under abe-darwin-x64 worked spectacularly. I copied the applications under abe-win32-ia32 and abe-win32-x64 to a Windows machine, where they both failed to start. The complaint was "The program can't start because node.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem." Seems like a simple matter of an item missing from the manifest, if I knew where to look.

Which version of electron-packager are you using?
6.0.2

What CLI arguments are you passing? Alternatively, if you are using the API, what parameters are
you passing to the packager() function?
This is the command line I entered:
electron-packager . --all --icon abe_in_profile.icns --overwrite

What version of Electron are you building with?

Hmm. In the package.json in the electron-quick-start directory, electron-prebuilt appears in the dev dependencies:
"devDependencies": {
"electron-prebuilt": "^0.37.0"

What is the host platform are you running electron-packager on?

MacBook Pro, OS/X 10.11.2

What target platform(s)/architecture(s) are you building for?
Windows 7, 64-bit PC

Is there a stack trace in the error message you're seeing?

no stack track

Please provide either a failing testcase or detailed steps to reproduce your problem.
If you double-click the abe.exe file, you get a dialog box that says "The program can't start because node.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem."

[malept]

• Does node.dll exist in the same folder as abe.exe, when you create the app bundle on OSX?
• Does node.dll exist in the same folder as abe.exe, after you copy the app bundle folder to Windows?

[rhedin]

Ricks-MacBook-Pro:electron-quick-start $ find . -name 'node.dll'
./abe-win32-ia32/node.dll
./abe-win32-x64/node.dll
Ricks-MacBook-Pro:electron-quick-start $

Duh! I need to copy the whole directory. Is that what you're saying? I just copied the abe.exe file. I thought it was self-contained.

[malept]

It is not self-contained - according to the Electron developers in electron/electron#914, this is not currently possible.

[rhedin]

Thank you very much for the info, Mark. I will either have my user download the whole directory, or use electron-builder and make an installation program.