Python Virtual Environments with Virtualenvwrapper on Windows

1. Installing Virtualenvwrapper

To install virtualenvwrapper on Windows, you need to have Python and pip installed first. Once you have confirmed that they are properly installed, you can proceed with the installation.

Open a command prompt or PowerShell window and run the following command to install virtualenvwrapper:

pip install virtualenvwrapper-win

This will install virtualenvwrapper and its dependencies.

1. Configuring Virtual Environments

To configure virtual environments, you need to set up a few environment variables. Open the ‘System Properties’ dialog by clicking on ‘My Computer’ in the desktop menu, right-clicking, and selecting ‘Properties’. Then click on the ‘Advanced’ tab and click on ‘Environment Variables’.

In the ‘System variables’ section, click ‘New’ and add the following variables:

Variable Name: WORKON_HOME
Variable Value: The path where you want to store your virtual environments (e.g., ‘C:\Users\YourUsername\Envs’)

Click ‘OK’ to save the variable.

Next, find the ‘Path’ variable in either the ‘System variables’ or ‘User variables’ section (depending on whether you want the virtualenvwrapper to be available system-wide or just for the current user) and append ‘;%WORKON_HOME%\bin’ to the end of the value.

Click ‘OK’ to save the changes.

1. Creating a Virtual Environment

Now that the virtualenvwrapper is set up, you can create a new virtual environment. Open a command prompt or PowerShell window and run the following command:

mkvirtualenv myenv

This will create a new virtual environment called ‘myenv’. You can replace ‘myenv’ with the name of your choice.

1. Activate the Virtual Environment

To start using the virtual environment, you need to activate it. Run the following command:

workon myenv

Replace ‘myenv’ with the name of your virtual environment.

This will activate the virtual environment. You can now install packages into this environment using pip without affecting other environments or your system-wide Python installation.

1. Deactivate the Virtual Environment

When you are done working in a virtual environment, you can deactivate it by running the following command:

d workon myenv

Replace ‘myenv’ with the name of your virtual environment.

This will deactivate the virtual environment.

That’s it! You have successfully set up virtualenvwrapper on Windows and can now create, switch, and manage multiple virtual environments for your Python projects.