# How to distribute programs that require Gregor?

**URL:** <https://racket.discourse.group/t/how-to-distribute-programs-that-require-gregor/1948>\
**Category:** Questions & Answers\
**Created:** [May 15, 2023, 7:21am UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/how-to-distribute-programs-that-require-gregor/1948 "2023-05-15T07:21:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![alexh](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/racket.discourse.group/alexh/32/315_2.png) [@alexh](https://racket.discourse.group/u/alexh)\
**Post date:** [May 16, 2023, 10:58pm UTC](https://racket.discourse.group/t/how-to-distribute-programs-that-require-gregor/1948/5 "2023-05-16T22:58:34Z")

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On a Windows platform, the time zone database is installed from the `tzdata` Racket package, which is a dependency of `gregor`. You need to use `raco dist` to package these files with the distributed executable, the `--embed-dlls` option will not help here, since these files are not DLLs.

In general, you cannot skip the `raco dist` step when distributing stand-alone Racket applications, on any platform, since other libraries might contain files which are not Racket source files or shared libraries.

See also: [Bundling external libraries with Raco Distribute - #6 by alexh](https://racket.discourse.group/t/bundling-external-libraries-with-raco-distribute/632/6)

I find that a lot of people are confused by the `--embed-dlls` option, and they think they can ship just the executable file that it produces, but this only works in very limited cases.

Alex.

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