CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonvirtualenv
capitalistcuttle
capitalistcuttle

Reputation: 1823

How can I use virtualenv to use 32-bit and 64-bit Python in Windows?

I have 64-bit Python (2.7.5) installed at C:\Python27 and 32-bit Python at C:\Python27_32.

I would like to use virtualenv to set up a 32-bit virtual environment that I can switch into when I need to use 32-bit Python. Once that environment is set up, I plan to edit the bin\activate file to change all the necessary paths to point to the 32-bit directories.

However, when I try to create the virtual environment, I get the following error:

> virtualenv --python=C:\Python27_32\python.exe foo

Running virtualenv with interpreter C:\Python27_32\python.exe
PYTHONHOME is set.  You *must* activate the virtualenv before using it
New python executable in foo\Scripts\python.exe
Installing setuptools...............
  Complete output from command C:\Users\<user>\Drop...o\Scripts\python.exe -c "#!python
\"\"\"Bootstra...sys.argv[1:])

" C:\Python27\lib\site...ols-0.6c11-py2.7.egg:
  Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 278, in <module>
  File "<string>", line 238, in main
  File "build/bdist.linux-i686/egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 21, in <module>
  File "build/bdist.linux-i686/egg/setuptools/package_index.py", line 2, in <module>
  File "C:\Python27\Lib\urllib2.py", line 94, in <module>
    import httplib
  File "C:\Python27\Lib\httplib.py", line 71, in <module>
    import socket
  File "C:\Python27\Lib\socket.py", line 47, in <module>
    import _socket
ImportError: DLL load failed: %1 is not a valid Win32 application.
----------------------------------------
...Installing setuptools...done.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 2577, in <module>
    main()
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 979, in main
    no_pip=options.no_pip)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 1091, in create_environment
    search_dirs=search_dirs, never_download=never_download)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 611, in install_setuptools
    search_dirs=search_dirs, never_download=never_download)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 583, in _install_req
    cwd=cwd)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\virtualenv.py", line 1057, in call_subprocess
    % (cmd_desc, proc.returncode))
OSError: Command C:\Users\<user>\Drop...o\Scripts\python.exe -c "#!python
\"\"\"Bootstra...sys.argv[1:])

" C:\Python27\lib\site...ols-0.6c11-py2.7.egg failed with error code 1

It seems to be doing imports in the 64-bit folder instead of in the 32-bit folder. I'm not sure if it's because of the way my environment variables are set up, or because I installed virtualenv under 64-bit Python in the first place.

These are my user environment variables:

Path: %PYTHONHOME%;C:\Python27\Scripts
PYTHONHOME: C:\Python27
PYTHONPATH: C:\Python27\Lib;C:\Python27\Lib\lib-tk;C:\Python27\DLLs;

But if I change every C:\Python27 to C:\Python27_32 in my environment variables, then I can't virtualenv to run (ImportError: No module named pkg_resources).

This is my first time messing with virtualenv, so I'm sure I'm missing something basic. How can I create a virtual environment that uses my 32-bit Python installation?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 22308

Answers (3)

Dr Manhattan
Dr Manhattan

Reputation: 14097

If you installed the 32Bit version first, and install the 64Bit version second (And you added python to path), Then you can use the updated python launcher (py) to create the 64Bit version of your virtualenv

py -m venv my-env-name

Upvotes: 1

curtly critchlow
curtly critchlow

Reputation: 24

in command prompt Use: set CONDA_FORCE_32BIT=1 conda create -n virtualenv_name python=x.x anaconda

The above can be found @ How to install win-32 package on a 64-bit system with conda install I personally tried it and it worked successfully (32-bit python x.x installed). Using Anaconda is not necessary but it will install all of the anaconda packages like pandas.

Disclaimer: The comment below is a caution and not an attack on the answer submitted by anyone else.

As my friend told me "changing the path manually is discouraged, mostly because you'd have to inform other applications that use Python (and that you do not necessarily know of) to point to a different folder, and changes are not certain to be consistent across your system. In a way, virtualenvs do the same but in a cleaner and (sort of) predictable fashion".

Upvotes: -1

Steve Barnes
Steve Barnes

Reputation: 28405

For your virtual env to run after you have changed your paths you will need to install virtualenv into the 32 bit python - there is nothing stopping you having a copy of virtualenv in each python.

Assuming you have python 2.7.c 64-bit as your default python and you have also installed python 2.7.x 32-bit you would need both anyway - also assuming that you are on windows your two pythons will be installed somewhere like:

C:\Python27 and C:\Python27_64

With the latter on your path.

Also assuming that you have pip installed in both, you will need it for virtualenv anyway - to install virtualenv to the 32 bit python you can either run:

Path\To\32Bit\pip install virtualenv

or

set path=C:\Python27;C:\Python27\Scripts;%path%
rem The above should set your 32 bit to be found before your 64 bit
pip install virtualenv

Upvotes: 14

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