anaconda install python 3.4 on windows

Question

I want to install and use python 3.4 and its numerous libraries, (such as numpy, pandas, etc) using Anaconda. Unfortunately, I am unable to activate python 3.4.

I installed Acaconda 2.0 (Anaconda-2.0.0-Windows-x86_64) on a Windows 8 notebook. The Anaconda program installed properly and python 2.7 was installed. I then attempted to install python 3.4 using these commands at a command prompt in the C:\Program Files\Anaconda directory.

$ conda update conda
$ conda create -n py34 python=3.4 anaconda
$ activate py34

The first two seemed to work fine as I saw no error messages. At the last step I receive the following error message: No environment named “py34” exits in C:\Program Files\Anaconda\envs

Python 3.4 was installed not in the C:\Program Files\Anaconda but in the C:\Users\Daddio1949\envs\py34 directory.

I not sure how to proceed to finalize the installation, what should I do?

Answer 1

Anaconda uses relative paths to locate the envs folder. Whenever you run the anaconda.bat or the activate.bat script, the script looks for its own location, e.g. C:\someplace\Scripts\activate.bat, then looks for an ..\envs folder, e.g. C:\someplace\envs.

What you are describing here sounds to me like you are having multiple folders with the *.bat scripts in your %PATH% variable (likely because you haven't writing rights for the C:\Program Files\Anaconda folder). When running activate.bat it seems to come from your C:\Program Files folder, whereas conda seems to run from your C:\Users directory.

My suggestions:

• Try to run the *.bat scripts from your C:\Users\Daddio1949\Scripts directory (if present). If it does not exist, copy activate.bat and deactivate.bat from the Anaconda Scripts directory to your user scripts directory and run the *.bat files from there.
• Try to find out if you have other activate.bat in your Windows %PATH% folders. Make sure that you call the right one.