Fatal error in launcher: Unable to create process using ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Python33\python.exe" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Python33\pip.exe""

Question

it seems that

python -m pip install XXX 

will work anyway (worked for me) (see link by user474491)

On Windows at least, pip stores the execution path in the executable pip.exe when it is installed.

Edit this file using a hex editor or WordPad (you have to save it as plain text then to retain binary data), change the path to Python with quotes and spaces like this:

#!"C:\Program Files (x86)\Python33\python.exe"

to an escaped path without spaces and quotes and pad with spaces (dots at the end should be spaces):

#!C:\Progra~2\Python33\python.exe.............

For "C:\Program Files", this path would probably be "C:\Progra~1" (shortened path names in DOS / Windows 3.x notation use tilde and numbers). Windows provides this alternative notation for backwards compatibility with DOS / Windows 3.x apps.

Note that as this is a binary file, you should not change the file size which may break the executable, hence the padding.

Save with administrator privileges, make sure it is actually saved at the target location and try again.

You might also need to set the PATH variable to use the ~ notation for the path to pip.

having the same trouble I read in https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/installing.html#install-pip that to update pip it's:

python -m pip install -U pip

So I made (for example)

python -m pip install virtualenv

And it worked! So you can do the same being 'virtualenv' another package you want.

I had a similar issue and upgrading pip fixed it for me.

python -m pip install --upgrade pip 

This was on Windows and the path to python inside pip.exe was incorrect. See Archimedix answer for more information about the path.