how to access python from command line using py instead of python

Question

I have a very weird request. An executable I have has a system call to a python script which goes like py file1.py Now, in my system though py is shown as an unrecognized internal or external command. python file1.py works however.

is there some way I can get my windows command prompt to recognize that py and python refer to the same thing?

Answer 1

py command comes with Python3.x and allow to choose among multiple Python interpreters. For example if you have both Python 3.4 and 2.7 installed, py -2 will start python2.7 and py -3 will start python3.4 . If you just use py it will start the one that was defined as default.

So the official way would be to install Python 3.x, declare Python 2.7 as the default, and the py command will do its job.

But if you just want py to be an alias of python, doskey py=python.exe as proposed by @Nizil and @ergonaut will be much simpler... Or copying python.exe to py.exe in Python27 folder if you do not want to be bothered by the limitations of doskey.