realpython / realpython/python-guide

Discrepancy in Installation Python 3 on Windows

Open
#846 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
Batchfile
Stars
29.8k
Forks
5.9k
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

The Working with Python 3 section mentions you should use python3 to launch the Python 3 interpreter, which does not actually work. The Windows distribution provides only python.exe for all versions of Python, and to launch the Python 3 interpreter you need python. This also creates problems if you install both Python 2 and 3—the executables override each other, and only one of the exes is visible at a time through %Path% (what actually is visible depends on the order of the search paths).

AFAIK the official way to deal with this problem is through the py launcher, but that only solves the python.exe problem, not other scripts installed later during the setup (e.g. pip vs pip3), and other global tools (e.g. pipenv). It will affect other parts of the tutorial as well.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

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 with the guide's “Working with Python 3” section and review the linked Python launcher documentation for Windows. Check the other tutorial references to Python, pip, pip3, and pipenv, then update the Windows-specific guidance so the commands and version-selection instructions are consistent throughout.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.