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I have checked two questions before:

The bank, where I work as a software engineer, does not allow us to download the packages, via MiKTeX, from the mirrors of denylisted sites under the user or admin mode for matter of security. The bank allows allows us only to install a software as a complete, offline and standalone installer (it needs to be an EXE or a MSI).

I thought of getting a TeXLive Collection and TeXLive DVD, but TeXLive Collection only downloads, what the banks forbids, TeXLive DVD is just an ISO and not an EXE.

I am seeking for an alternative to MiKTeX and TeXLive DVD, as a complete software that comes along with all the TeXLive or CTAN packages to installl without downloading from the internet.

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  • isn't the tug/texlive dvd what you need? the installer and a ctan snapshot so you shouldn't need a remote update. Nov 22, 2021 at 12:41
  • can you use the ubuntu system supplied texlive in the windows subsystem for linux? this wouldn't need any third party site, just apt get from the main ubuntu system repositories. Nov 22, 2021 at 12:46
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    can't you create a portable miktex on another computer and then zip it in an self extracting exe? Nov 22, 2021 at 12:57
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    I was going to suggest same as Ulrike but for texlive, if you install it somewhere all you need is to copy the directory so a self executing zip file would be fine. Nov 22, 2021 at 12:58
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    You naturally need to prepare a full portable version on another PC first. Then you can copy everything to your bank PC. Nov 22, 2021 at 17:09

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I don't know whether using MiKTeX or TeX Live at a bank is legal/regular/not contrary-to-contract. Checking this out (e.g. license-conditions at the side of MiKTeX/TeX Live, e.g. whatsoever conditions at the side of the bank/employer/client/contractor, etc) is up to you. I recommend not to perform illegal/irregular/contrary-to-contract actions. ;-)

Regarding the question whether using TeX is safe you might be interested in the discussion "Are there any dangerous commands in LaTeX?".

In any case, I would first check with the people responsible for computer security and have them confirm in a provable/legally binding manner that it is okay to attempt/to carry out intended installation steps/system changes.


Both with TeX Live and with MiKTeX you can easily create a local mirror of the entire package repository (e.g. on a removable medium like an USB-stick or a (micro)SD-card or an external USB-harddisk) and instead of having the installer downloading from the internet have it use the local mirror (on the removable medium) for installation.

(Local mirrors of package repositories can also be maintained, e.g., in samba-shares instead of using removable media. For installing things under Linux you usually need to mount the samba-share in question. With many Linux platforms you can use cifs for doing this.)

This feature is intended to offer the possibility of downloading only once for installing on several machines instead of repeating all the downloading with each single machine.

For creating the removable medium containing the local mirror you can probably use a machine not under the reigns of the bank.

Then, at the bank's machine where you want the TeX-distributon to be installed, launch the exe-file that makes up the installer from command-line and hereby via the appropriate command-line-options denote the removable medium as the location of the local mirror of the package repository.

If you can't insert/attach a removable medium (in)to the machine where you wish the TeX distribution to be installed, you probably can put both the installer and the folder containing the local mirror of the package repository into a zipped exe-file and after in whatsoever way transferring that to the bank's machine have that unzipped for obtaining both the local mirror and the installer on the bank's machine before running the installer.


In MiKTeX a local mirror of the entire package repository is called a "local package repository".

Both for obtaining a local package repository and for installing from a local package repository you can't use the "MiKTeX Basic Installer".
Instead you need to use the "MiKTeX Setup Utility".

You can obtain the "MiKTeX Setup Utility" at https://miktex.org/download: Just click the register "All downloads" and you will see it in the list.

Info on how to use the "MiKTeX Setup Utility" for obtaining a local package repository for MiKTeX is at https://miktex.org/howto/local-repository.

Info on how to use the "MiKTeX Setup Utility" for installing from a local package repository is at https://docs.miktex.org/manual/miktexsetup.html; see section "Options", "--local-package-repository=dir - Download into (install from) the specified directory".

Info on using a local package repository for deploying MiKTeX at your organization is at Rollout MiKTeX in your organization / https://miktex.org/howto/deploy-miktex. I think you won't need this. :-)


With TeX Live you can create a local mirror of the entire package repository, e.g., using rsync.

I don't know if there is a rsync-client for Windows or whether you can install rsync under Windows via Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). But you probably can boot some computer from a removable medium like USB-stick or (mico)SSD-card or external USB-harddrive or DVD, using a Linux live-system which boots from removable media and which brings along rsync. E.g., Knoppix is such a Linux live-system which can be installed on many kinds of removable media; release 9.1 is based on Debian bullseye with a few packages from Debian/unstable (sid).

Instructions on creating a local mirror of the entire package repository of TeX Live via rsync are at Downloading/mirroring the TeX Live repository / https://tug.org/texlive/acquire-mirror.html.

Instructions on how to have the TeX Live-Installer use the local mirror instead of downloading from the internet are in the The TeX Live Guide—2021 at https://www.tug.org/texlive/doc/texlive-en/texlive-en.html , "section 3.3.1 The -repository option".


Probably you can use the sfx-module of some zipping-tool for creating a self-extracting exe-file which extracts the installer and the local package repository, launches the installer using appropriate command-line-options so that the extracted package repository is used as local package repository. See, e.g., Is it possible to execute a file after extraction from a 7-Zip self-extracting archive (SFX) archive?.

Probably the bank can be convinced to maintain a repository for deployment in the organization and to deliver an sfx-exe-file which extracts and launches the installer with commandline-options for using the bank's deployment-repository.


I just read that you can use the MiKTeX-net-installer with command-line-options like -portable and -package-set=complete for downloading MiKTeX and then creating a portable MiKTeX-installation which contains everything.

Create the portable full MiKTeX-installation on a computer which does not belong the bank.

As the installation is portable, you can copy it by copying the folder that contains it. Copying in turn can be done by using a file-packer like 7-Zip or WinRar for packaging the folder into a self-extracting exe-archive.

This way there is no need for the self-extracting archive to execute whatsoever file after extracting.

You can obtain the "MiKTeX-net-installer" at https://miktex.org/download: Just click the register "All downloads" and you will see it in the list.

I think you can also create a portable full installation, using the Basic-Installer, obeying the instruction of renaming it to miktex-portable.exe as described at https://miktex.org/howto/portable-edition and additionally providing the command-line-option --package-set=complete described at https://docs.miktex.org/manual/setupwiz.html.

You can obtain the "Basic-Installer" at https://miktex.org/download: Just click the register "All downloads" and you will see it in the list.

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  • The bank doesn't allow only the attachment of USD drive or SSD to the collaborator's bank computer, but allows the collaborator to zip both the installer (MikTeX Utility Setup) and the directory, to deploy them to Google Drive, send the Google Drive share link or send via Google Drive share attachment to the support analyst e-mail. The problem is that, to add to the software central, it needs to be an EXE or a MSI. If you think it's impossible, then I'll suggest the ISS to create the own bank mirror, cloning a university's CTAN mirror, like the bank did the mirrors for PyPi and npmJS.
    – Oo'-
    Nov 22, 2021 at 15:15
  • @GustavoReis Probably you can use the sfx-module of some zipping-tool for creating a self-extracting exe-file which extracts the installer and the local package repository, launches the installer using appropriate command-line-options so that the extracted package repository is used as local package repository. See, e.g., Is it possible to execute a file after extraction from a 7-Zip self-extracting archive (SFX) archive?. Nov 22, 2021 at 15:25
  • @GustavoReis Probably the bank can be convinced to maintain a repository for deployment in the organization and to deliver an exe-file which extracts and launches the installer with commandline-options for using the bank's deployment-repository. Nov 22, 2021 at 15:42
  • Will I add both portable MiKTeX and the folder full of bz2, cab and lzmas, using sfx-module, becoming into an EXE?
    – Oo'-
    Nov 22, 2021 at 18:14
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    @GustavoReis I just read that you can use the MiKTeX-net-installer (setup-21.10-next.exe) with command-line-options like -portable and -package-set=complete for creating a portable MiKTeX-installation which contains everything. As it is portable, you can copy it by copying the folder that contains it. Copying in turn can be done by using a file-packer like 7-zip or WinRar for packaging the folder into a self-extracting exe-archive. .. Nov 22, 2021 at 18:52

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