Python setup guide for Windows

Related
See also my post on setting up a Git development environment and R on Windows.

Windows without WSL

1. Check if you have Windows Terminal installed. If not, install it from the Microsoft Store.

2. Launch a Windows Terminal instance. This should start a PowerShell session.

3. Update the PowerShell execution policy by running the following command:

   Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
   

4. Run Get-ExecutionPolicy to check if it is set to RemoteSigned. If not, try setting it again in a terminal with administrative rights.

5. Check if winget (the Windows package manager) is installed. The following command should bring up details about winget. If not, install it from the Microsoft Store.

   winget --help
   

   Note
   When using winget for the first time, you will be asked to accept some terms and conditions.

6. Install a text editor. We will use Visual Studio Code.

   winget install vscode
   

7. Find an appropriate Python version to install using the following command.

   winget search --tag python --cmd python --source winget
   

   This will output the following:

   Name            Id                  Version     Match
   -----------------------------------------------------------
   Python 3        Python.Python.3.9   3.9.13      Tag: python
   Python 3.12     Python.Python.3.12  3.12.0      Tag: python
   Python 3.11     Python.Python.3.11  3.11.6      Tag: python
   Python 3.10     Python.Python.3.10  3.10.11     Tag: python
   Python 2        Python.Python.2     2.7.18150   Tag: python
   Python Launcher Python.Launcher     3.12.0      Tag: python
   Miniconda3      Anaconda.Miniconda3 py39_4.10.3 Tag: python
   Anaconda3       Anaconda.Anaconda3  2023.09     Tag: python
   

8. Install Python. At the time of writing this guide, the latest version was 3.12, so I am installing 3.11.

   winget install python.python.3.11
   

9. Check if Python was installed correctly. This command should display the version.

   py --version
   

10. Launch Visual Studio Code and install the following extensions:

    • Python
    • Jupyter

11. Create a project folder, e.g. in C:\User\Username\Documents\project_folder.

12. Create a virtual environment in the project folder.

    cd C:\User\Username\Documents\project_folder
    py -m venv .venv
    .venv\Scripts\activate
    

13. Install appropriate packages (e.g. JupyterLab) in the virtual environment.

    py -m pip install --upgrade pip
    py -m pip install jupyterlab matplotlib pandas
    

14. Create an example Jupyter Notebook in the project folder, e.g. my_notebook.ipynb.

15. Try to open the notebook using either VS Code or JupyterLab. To launch JupyterLab, run the following in the terminal from the project folder, which will launch a web browser instance:

    jupyter lab
    

16. Activate the kernel in the Jupyter notebook and start coding!

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) - Ubuntu

1. In PowerShell, install Visual Studio Code and WSL (Ubuntu):

   winget install vscode
   wsl --install
   

2. Install the WSL VS Code extension locally in Windows.

3. Launch an Ubuntu Bash shell instance from Windows Terminal.

4. Python should already be installed; check its version:

   python --version
   

   Note
   Note that it’s python on Ubuntu, not py.

5. Launch VS Code using the WSL shell from the project folder’s directory:

   cd C:/User/Username/Documents/project_folder
   code .
   

6. Install local VS Code extensions (e.g. Python and Jupyter) in WSL.

7. Set-up a virtual environment in the project folder and install relevant packages:

   python3 -m venv .venv
   source .venv/bin/activate
   python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
   python3 -m pip install jupyterlab matplotlib pandas
   

Further reading

• https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/wsl