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I am very new to Python and recently installed Python 2.7.6 x86 on Windows. I am trying to create an environment via virtualenv. I installed Python, then installed pip and virtualenv globally. I then CD'd to the directory I wanted to create an environment in and ran virtualenv env. Then I activated it with env\scripts\activate. Now, when I try to run any of the scripts through virtualenv (pip, easy_install, etc.) I get the following error:

Fatal error in launcher: Unable to create process using
'""[dir]\env\Scripts\python.exe"" "[dir]\env\Scripts\pip.exe" --version'

Note the extra quotes around the python exe. It has two sets of quotation marks, not just one set.

I have a feeling that this is a path error. The path is getting set in activate.bat, but looks correct there - set "VIRTUAL_ENV=[dir]\env"

Let me reiterate that scripts work fine globally. I am only seeing this error in virtualenv.

Where is that extra set of quotation marks coming from? How can I get rid of it?

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8 Answers 8

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28

Same error for me here. Until I tried the following (being inside of my venv) and it worked:

(venv) > python -m pip

or

(venv) > python -m easy_install
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8

I had this problem, because i put my virtual env directory in a directory with .(dot) and spaces in name. When i renamed the parent dir, it worked.

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I'm accepting this as the new answer to this question after all this time because I recently installed Python on a new machine and ran into this issue again, and when I checked my virtualenv path, it did indeed have spaces in it. When I removed the spaces from the path name, I no longer had the issue. Thanks for the suggestion!
I had the same issue, but mine was because I had a dash (-) in the directory name... sigh
2

I was able to get over this error by creating my directory which will have virtual environment under C:\Python27 and it worked for me.

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1

Reinstall python inside a folder without spaces and it should work.

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This issue is also present in virtualenvwrapper-win.

The system cannot find the path specified

Here's how they resolved it

"I changed WORKON_HOME to C:\PythonEnvs and it now works."

So, the advice on windows continues to be: no spaces in path names.

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I had this problem after installing both python versions 2.7 and 3.4, fixed after upgrading virtualenv on python 3.4 version with command:

pip3 install --upgrade virtualenv
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I could solve the same error using following command inside venv.

python -m easy_install pip
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I had this exact problem with respect to pip and had to upgrade my python installation to 2.7.6 and reinstall pip.

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Were you not using 2.7.6 when this happened to you? I am using 2.7.6, and I can't upgrade any further because the libraries I want to use in the future aren't available for 3.x.

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