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[Python-Dev] Python install layout and the PATH on win32

Merlijn van Deen valhallasw at arctus.nl
Tue Mar 20 19:50:42 CET 2012 
On 13 March 2012 20:43, VanL <van.lindberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Following up on conversations at PyCon, I want to bring up one of my
> personal hobby horses for change in 3.3: Fix install layout on Windows, with
> a side order of making the PATH work better.

As this is being considered an 'incompatible change' on the bug
tracker item [1] in any case, I'd like to mention that this might also
be a convenient moment to re-think the default install location. After
all, software is supposed to be installed in %programfiles% on
windows, not in c:\<program name>.

I asked a question about this on IRC, to which the response was that
there were two main reasons to install python in c:\pythonxy:

1 - issues due to spaces ('Program Files') or non-ascii characters in
the path ('Fișiere Program' on a Romanian windows). These issues are
supposed to be fixed by now (?).
2 - issues due to permissions - installing python / packages in
%programfiles% may require administrator rights.

Historical note: in python 1.5 the install location was changed to
\program files\.., but in python 1.6/2.0 it was changed (back?) to
\pythonxy. [2 @ 10618, 10850, 13804]

[1] http://bugs.python.org/issue14302
[2] http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/a5add01e96be/Misc/HISTORY
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