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Context of the question

I've got a lot of python installs on my disk, each shipped with a different software or directly installed by me. See exemple below of some path to exe I found with a dir *python*.exe /s /b command on my C: drive (i didn't wrote all results)

One of the problem I have is that every time there's a different application (arcgis, qgis, libreoffice or others), there's different python exe and themodules I need have to be re-installed from pip over again.

Another problem is that I'm trying to install an IDE like Pycharm and I'm wondering what's the right install to choose from. It seems what the people do is just point out to the right software and build a specific .CMD file to set up Pycharm with it. So I can manage that if necessary, but it seems a bit messy to me. It seems all the programs seek to install there own python.exe set regarless if there's is an existing Python installed on the machine.

My question

i'm seeking for an general advice for this situation rather than a technical solution to my own problems. I mainly feel it's wrong having all those installs everywhere. I'm not sure to have enough technical knowledge to take a wise decision on what to do and to avoid making all my applications go hayward. Below different aspects of this question to guide you in your answers :

  • Should I install once and for all Python 2.7 and 3.X in one spot and find way to redirect the softwares towards those python install instead of having lots of installs everywhere ?

  • Or...Should I leave all those installs as there are and try and cope with it ?

  • Or... you have another advice on how I could deal with all these efficently ?

Examples below

C:\OSGeo4W64\apps\Python36\python.exe
C:\OSGeo4W64\bin\python.exe
C:\OSGeo4W64\bin\python3.exe
C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\bin\Python\python.exe
C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\bin\Python\envs\arcgispro-py3\python.exe
C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.77\python\bin\python.exe
C:\Program Files\GIMP 2\Python\python.exe
C:\Program Files\Inkscape\python\python.exe
C:\Program Files\LibreOffice 5\program\python.exe
C:\Program Files\LibreOffice 5\program\python-core-3.3.0\bin\python.exe
C:\Program Files\Python36\python.exe
C:\Python27\ArcGIS10.4\python.exe
C:\Python27\ArcGISx6410.4\python.exe
C:\Python27amd64\python.exe
C:\Python3\python.exe
gisnside
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    As you are seeking general advice, I would suggest to use virtual environments for your python distributions, and the packages you need installed. – Reblochon Masque Aug 25 '17 at 13:33
  • I see. I haven't looked into that as I didn't know exactly what it was for. I'll read about that to understand how it works. Thanks for this advice. – gisnside Aug 25 '17 at 13:36
  • For people interested in this subject, I found this : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5844869/comprehensive-beginners-virtualenv-tutorial – gisnside Aug 25 '17 at 14:59

0 Answers0