Easiest way to compile a lua script (*.exe)…

luac doesn't compile to a system exe file. All it does is take the lua script, and turn it into lua bytecode. You still have to pass the resulting file to lua to execute.

So the exe file contains garbage from the OS point of view. When exe files don't contain valid exe headers, the OS for some reason decides that it must be an old style dos .com file and tries to execute it with the 16bit dos subsystem. Hence the strange error message.

If you want to make an exe out of compiled lua you will need to use a different environment - perhaps visual studio - to make a small project that loads (and executes) a lua file - compiled or script - using an embedded lualib.

Creating Standalone Lua Executables on Stackoverflow has some tips on how to go about that.

if you want completelly create one stand alone executable, you can try this : http://www.pyinstaller.org/ . i feel it's better to create one stand alone executable than cx_freeze or py2exe (in my experience). and easy to use (full documentation available in the site).

Update: As latest information from @SoursopTree and @LectureMaker, it now support python version 3.3 - 3.6.

Update: pass --onefile argument if you want to create completely standalone .exe. in example :

pyinstaller.exe --onefile --windowed app.py