pypa / pypa/packaging.python.org

Address the python3 command issue on Windows

Open
#751 6 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
Python
Stars
1.7k
Forks
1.7k
Avg merge
3d 12h
Merged PRs (30d)
4

Description

A lot of the support requests on pypa/packaging-problems are Windows users not being able to run the python3 command, since it is not shipped with the official CPython distribution. (recent example: pypa/packaging-problems#373)

Microsoft recently added a python3.exe stub that automatically opens the Windows Store page if you does not have the Store-provided Python installed. The problem is, the stub would silently do nothing if you pass any arguments to it, making users very confused.

I don’t have a perfect solution, unfortunately. The default python on macOS is still Python 2 (with a warning message), so that won’t work. py -3 is the recommended command for the official CPython distribution on Windows, but IIRC it is not shipped with the Windows Store distribution. The situation is quite bad, if I am being honest.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the issue text and the linked pypa/packaging-problems#373 example, then compare the official CPython and Microsoft Store command behavior described here. Define a concrete recommendation for Windows users and document how to handle python3 arguments; done means the guidance addresses the reported confusion without relying on an unresolved command choice.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.