pypa/virtualenv — Issue #190: Windows: "The system cannot find the file specified"
Author: brandon-rhodes
Created: 2011-11-25 02:02:21+00:00
State: open

Whether I grab virtualenv.py lone from the repository browser, or download trunk as a ZIP and run the virtualenv.py sitting in there (thus giving it the advantage of sitting next to its files), or actually “setup.py install” the package and then run it with “python -m virtualenv” (because the script does not get created anywhere under windows with “setup.py install” and a bare Python installation?), I get the exact same error, which at this late hour of Thanksgiving I find inexplicable:

```C:\>\python27\python.exe -m virtualenv v27
New python executable in v27\Scripts\python.exe
Installing setuptools.................done.
Installing pip...
Error [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified while executing command C : \ v 2 7 \ S c r i p t s \ p y t h o n . e x e C:\v27\Scripts\easy_instal
l-script.py C:\python27\lib\site...ort\pip-1.0.2.tar.gz
...Installing pip...done.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\python27\lib\runpy.py", line 162, in _run_module_as_main
"__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name)
File "C:\python27\lib\runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
exec code in run_globals
File "C:\python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 1978, in
main()
File "C:\python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 810, in main
never_download=options.never_download)
File "C:\python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 922, in create_environment
install_pip(py_executable, search_dirs=search_dirs, never_download=never_download)
File "C:\python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 625, in install_pip
filter_stdout=_filter_setup)
File "C:\python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 848, in call_subprocess
cwd=cwd, env=env)
File "C:\python27\lib\subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
errread, errwrite)
File "C:\python27\lib\subprocess.py", line 893, in _execute_child
startupinfo)
WindowsError: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified

C:\>```

Is this to be expected if virtualenv trunk is run under Windows? Does it indicate that my little EC2 Micro instance of Windows Server (64-bit) has something wrong with it or unconfigured that virtualenv is expecting to be present on Windows? Thanks for any pointers as to how I should investigate!