I am brand-new with QT Creator, and someone else's project just fell into my lap, so please be kind.

I need to build an executable that can be emailed to and run upon other Windows machines that do not have QT Creator or its .dlls installed.

Curiously, invoking via the QT Creator IDE via the green triangle runs the application but double-clicking on the .exe does not. I see reports that certain .dlls, such as libwinpthread-1.dll, "do not exist on your computer" yet they are clearly present and the PATH includes routes to the containing folders. 

Copying them into the folder containing the .exe has solved the problem but that is just a hack. 

These problems persist even after running windeployqt.

Thanks!