[Question] Can I predownload and then install Qt on completely offline machine?

[MVoloshin]

Hi. Please tell me, is it possible to predownload Qt packages (by means of aqtinstall) and then install them on completely offline machine for further use with Qt Creator? Thx in advance

[lebarsfa]

On the computer with Internet:

• Install FileZilla, launch it and in Host paste ftp://mirrors.dotsrc.org/.mirrors/qtproject/online/qtsdkrepository/windows_x86/desktop

• You should see a list of folders with lots of versions of Qt. Select e.g. qt6_692 and right-click and select Download. This will download about 5 GB. If you are short on disk space, you will need to navigate inside and manually select probably almost everything except the folders that explicitly have a name mentioning a compiler that you do not use, e.g. if you plan to use 64 bit MinGW on Windows, you probably do not need the folders that contain msvc2022 (which appear to be the biggest).

• Move the downloaded folders to a folder tree that looks like C:\tmp\qt6-base-dev-6.9.2\online\qtsdkrepository\windows_x86\desktop\qt6_692\qt6_692\[many folders] to match what was on the ftp repository. I do not know why qt6_692 is duplicated in the folder tree…

• Download Python, Qt Creator, MinGW, CMake, 7-Zip, aqt.exe in C:\tmp\qt6-base-dev-6.9.2. Note that Python will only be used later on the offline computer to start a temporary local web server (e.g. on TCP port 8000).

• Get settings.ini, copy it in C:\tmp\qt6-base-dev-6.9.2 and add http://127.0.0.1:8000/ below trusted_mirrors inside, and set also INSECURE_NOT_FOR_PRODUCTION_ignore_hash to True.

On the computer without Internet:

• You might need to set up its Antivirus/Firewall to allow the use of the TCP port 8000, e.g. for a default Windows installation, right-click on the Windows button and click on Terminal (Admin) and then paste:

netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="Open Port 8000 TCP" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=8000

• Find a way, e.g. USB flash drive, to copy on it the C:\tmp\qt6-base-dev-6.9.2 folder from the other computer.
• Install Python (be sure to select Add python.exe to PATH option).
• Open 2 new Terminal (Admin) and then paste in the first:

python -m http.server --directory C:\tmp\qt6-base-dev-6.9.2

• In the second Terminal (Admin) paste:

C:\tmp\qt6-base-dev-6.9.2\aqt.exe --config "C:\tmp\qt6-base-dev-6.9.2\settings.ini" install-qt --base http://127.0.0.1:8000/ --outputdir "C:\Qt" windows desktop 6.9.2 win64_mingw -m "qtcharts"

• Install 7-Zip.
• Extract x86_64-13.1.0-release-posix-seh-ucrt-rt_v11-rev1.7z and copy/move its mingw64 folder inside C:\ProgramData\mingw64\ (paste C:\ProgramData in Windows Explorer address bar, then create inside a mingw64 folder), then add to Windows PATH C:\ProgramData\mingw64\mingw64\bin (note that mingw64 is duplicated to match what MinGW Chocolatey package does...).
• Paste %AppData% in Windows Explorer address bar, create inside a QtProject\qtcreator folder tree (backup and remove any existing QtProject folder) and put inside qtversion.xml and toolchains.xml.
• If needed, install CMake and then run regedit.exe and create HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Kitware\CMake\Packages\Qt6 with inside a REG_SZ named qt6_692_win64_mingw131 with C:\Qt\6.9.2\mingw_64.
• Extract qtcreator.7z and move it inside C:\tools, then run C:\tools\qtcreator\bin\qtcreator.exe. It should be possible to build and run a new Qt Widgets Application.

See also #224.