Receiving "failed to query" code 13: Access is denied when using virtualenv -p on my windows system

Question

I have two versions of Python installed on my Windows system. 3.7 is installed in C:\Python37 and 3.8 installed in Python 3.8.

My PATH variables include the Python 3.7 executable.

When I try to run 'virtualenv -p C:\Python38 ProjectFolder' I get the following error:

RuntimeError: failed to query C:\Python38 with code 13 err: 'Access is denied'

This is true if I specify C:\Python37 as well. Isn't this supposed to create a virutalenv using the specified Python binaries? What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

virtualenv -p C:\Python38\python.exe ProjectFolder

I.e. point -p to python executable, not to a directory.