https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sven-bosau_i-shipped-a-windows-desktop-app-heres-what-ugcPost-7445017642228252672-OUXh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAABC5OZABMhZ_WFSbStQmB6Hidy-HWwNPnt4
I shipped a Windows desktop app. Here's what surprised me.
A while back, I created a free online tool that converts Office documents (DOCX, XLSX, PDF...) to Markdown. Mostly used for feeding documents into AI workflows.
It works, but some users reached out. They wanted something that runs completely offline. No uploads, no cloud processing. Just privacy.
So I sat down and built it. A proper Windows app that converts files locally, in bulk. And as I'm mainly a Python guy...
What I used before:
- FreeSimpleGUI for the interface
- PyInstaller to package it
What I used this time:
- Tauri v2 for the UI (HTML, CSS, JS)
- Nuitka to compile the Python converter to a standalone .exe
- ... and, of course, Claude Code + Opus 4.6 😉
Why the switch? FreeSimpleGUI works, but looks a bit dated. And PyInstaller binaries get constantly flagged by Windows Defender as malicious. Nuitka compiles Python to real C, produces cleaner binaries, and is way less likely to trigger false positives.
If you use Python and would like to ship desktop tools, look into Nuitka and Tauri.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sven-bosau_i-shipped-a-windows-desktop-app-heres-what-ugcPost-7445017642228252672-OUXh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAABC5OZABMhZ_WFSbStQmB6Hidy-HWwNPnt4
I shipped a Windows desktop app. Here's what surprised me.
A while back, I created a free online tool that converts Office documents (DOCX, XLSX, PDF...) to Markdown. Mostly used for feeding documents into AI workflows.
It works, but some users reached out. They wanted something that runs completely offline. No uploads, no cloud processing. Just privacy.
So I sat down and built it. A proper Windows app that converts files locally, in bulk. And as I'm mainly a Python guy...
What I used before:
What I used this time:
Why the switch? FreeSimpleGUI works, but looks a bit dated. And PyInstaller binaries get constantly flagged by Windows Defender as malicious. Nuitka compiles Python to real C, produces cleaner binaries, and is way less likely to trigger false positives.
If you use Python and would like to ship desktop tools, look into Nuitka and Tauri.