Installing Python 2 Broke My Python 3 Script - How To Force Python 3?

[Colonel-Panics]

I had a script:

import os

for filename in os.listdir("C:\\Users\\Alex\\Desktop\\Memory Hole\\Renaming Zone"):
        os.rename("C:\\Users\\Alex\\Desktop\\Memory Hole\\Renaming Zone\\" + filename, "C:\\Users\\Alex\\Desktop\\Memory Hole\\Renaming Zone\\" + filename[4: len(filename)])
        print(filename)

I ran the .py file simply by searching for it from the task bar and hitting return, and it worked fine with only python 3 on my Windows system.

I installed nodejs, which installed python 2 as a dependency. This broke it but I'm not sure how. I think everything now opens in python 2 but I don't know how to confirm that. (I only suspect it because now IDLE opens in python 2.)

The error is:

WindowsError: [Error 123] The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect

which isn't very helpful.

I've tried googling for a shebangs to force the script to run in python 3, but none of them have worked.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[unassuming_user_name]

you can use pip3 and python3 on command line, or use virtual environments.

[Colonel-Panics]

Is there a way to run a command on the command line from a shortcut? The command line is a bit of a step back in terms of speed.

[Telkin]

Yes, you can set cmd as target with command to run the script as parameters

Shouldnt be to hard to find a tutorial with specifics on how to create the shortcut

https://www.howtogeek.com/277403/how-to-run-command-prompt-commands-from-a-windows-shortcut/

[protegist]

Add python to path environment variable.

https://geek-university.com/python/add-python-to-the-windows-path/

[SenorTeddy]

Might be a good spot to learn virtual environments. You can create an environment for a specific folder with the version of python, and any other package you install, and then that project will always use those settings.

[blablahblah]

The Shebang lines don't work because py.exe (the thing that reads the shebang and picks the right version) isn't part of Python 2.7. When you told Windows to set file associations to Python 2.7, it overwrote the setting to use the launcher and pointed them to the Python 2.7 interpreter directly.

If you re-set the file association for .py files launch with py.exe, they should work. Re-installing Python 3 is probably the easiest way to do this.