installation_on_windows.md

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Installation on Windows

Chocalatey

We suggest you use Chocolatey to install Git and Python.

Go to the Choclately install page and follow the instructions there. Choose the 'individual' install.

To do the install, as that page says, open a Powershell window with Administrator permissions. For example, press the Windows key, type "powershell", right-click on the "Windows PowerShell" option, chose "Run as administrator".

A Powershell window will open. Continue with the Choco install instructions, including checking, maybe setting the ExecutionPolicy.

Git and Python

In the same, or a new Powershell administrator window, type:

choco install -y git python

Close the Powershell, and open it again, again with Administrator privileges.

To check the install, type:

get-command python

This should show something like this:

CommandType     Name         Version    Source
-----------     ----         -------    ------
Application     python.exe   3.10.41... C:\Python310\python.exe

If, instead, you see a value for "Source" that starts C:\Users\scipy\AppData\Local\Microsoft..., either your install has failed, or you have forgotten to close and restart the Powershell window after doing the choco install step. Just in case, do that now, and recheck the command above.

Copy python.exe to python3.exe

The long-hand way

The output of get-command python above has shown you where Choco installed Python. For example, as you've already seen, I got:

CommandType     Name         Version    Source
-----------     ----         -------    ------
Application     python.exe   3.10.41... C:\Python310\python.exe

If, instead, you see a value for "Source" that starts C:\Users\scipy\AppData\Local\Microsoft ..., either your install has failed, or you have forgotten to close and restart the Powershell window after doing the choco install step. Just in case, do that now, and recheck the command above.

In my case, as you see above, Python was at c:\Python310\python.exe

Go to the directory containing Python. In my case this was c:\Python310

cd c:\Python310

Then copy the python.exe file to python3.exe, so python3 will also run the Python command.

cp python.exe python3.exe

Copying the short-hand way

If you prefer, you can do this copy step by copy-pasting the code below to the administrator Powershell prompt, and pressing Enter:

$py_path = (get-command -CommandType Application -TotalCount 1 python).Source
cp $py_path ((Split-Path $py_path) + '\python3.exe')

Check

Close the administrator Powershell window.

Open a new PowerShell window, not as administrator. Try this command:

get-command python3

You should see something like this:

CommandType     Name         Version    Source
-----------     ----         -------    ------
Application     python3.exe  3.10.41... C:\Python310\python3.exe

To finish

Close the Powershell. All done.