Windows Store "stub" Python executables give confusing behaviour

[pfmoore]

BPO	41327
Nosy	@brettcannon, @pfmoore, @tjguk, @zware, @eryksun, @zooba, @uranusjr

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/zooba'
closed_at = <Date 2020-07-17.18:50:03.779>
created_at = <Date 2020-07-17.18:42:52.443>
labels = ['3.9', 'OS-windows']
title = 'Windows Store "stub" Python executables give confusing behaviour'
updated_at = <Date 2020-07-21.17:23:05.470>
user = 'https://github.com/pfmoore'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-07-21.17:23:05.470>
actor = 'eryksun'
assignee = 'steve.dower'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2020-07-17.18:50:03.779>
closer = 'brett.cannon'
components = ['Windows']
creation = <Date 2020-07-17.18:42:52.443>
creator = 'paul.moore'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 41327
keywords = []
message_count = 12.0
messages = ['373845', '373846', '373847', '373849', '373851', '374026', '374028', '374030', '374053', '374056', '374071', '374075']
nosy_count = 7.0
nosy_names = ['brett.cannon', 'paul.moore', 'tim.golden', 'zach.ware', 'eryksun', 'steve.dower', 'uranusjr']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'third party'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue41327'
versions = ['Python 3.9']

[pfmoore]

First of all, I do know that this is an issue with the Windows Store distribution, rather than the python.org one. But (a) I don't know where to report a bug against the Store implementation except here, and (b) it's arguably a case of the Windows implementation "stealing" the Python command, so worth flagging against core Python.

The problem is that Windows 10 installs python and python3 executables by default, which open the Windows Store offering to install Python. That's not a bad thing - it's nice to have Python available with the OS! Although (see below) hijacking the python and python3 commands for this purpose has some problems.

But those stubs silently do nothing when run with command line arguments, and because the python.org distribution doesn't put Python on PATH by default, users end up with the stubs available even if they install python.org Python.

We're getting a lot of bug reports from users as a result of this, when they follow standard instructions like "execute python -m pip". With the stub on the path, this silently does nothing, even though the user has installed Python. This is a very bad user experience, and not one that projects like pip can do anything to alleviate, other than having extremely convoluted "how to run pip" commands:

"""
To run pip, type python -m pip if you're on Unix, and py -m pip on Windows. Unless you're using the Windows Store version when you should do python -m pip on Windows too. Or on Unix when you might need to do python3 -m pip. Or...
"""

I don't have a good answer to this issue. Maybe the Windows Store stubs could detect core Python and do something better if it's installed? Maybe the stubs should print an explanatory message if run with command line arguments? Maybe Store Python should be available on Windows via some less error-prone mechanism?

I'm pretty sure if a Linux distribution shipped a python command that didn't run Python the way users expected, there would be complaints. After all, we have PEP-394 that explicitly states how we expect Unix systems to work. Maybe we need something similar for Windows?

[pfmoore]

See, for example, pypa/packaging-problems#379 as an illustration of the user (and project maintainer!) confusion this causes.

[brettcannon]

Closing as "third-party" as those stubs are controlled by Microsoft Windows and has nothing to do with us as a project beyond that they install the Windows Store copy that Steve uploads (although this is all feedback to Steve who has connections on the Windows team).

And I will say I believe there are shims on some Linux distros like Ubuntu for things like venv, pip, etc. which are not included in-box which people typically expect to be there.

[pfmoore]

I thought that might be the answer. But does anyone know where I can repost this as an issue against the Store distribution? I'm happy to report there if I can find out how...

Hopefully Steve can point me in the right direction.

[uranusjr]

FWIW, I tweeted about this a while ago (January) and IIRC Steve said there’s plan to change that. https://twitter.com/uranusjr/status/1212450480917340160

[zooba]

It already returns a non-zero exit code (should be (IIRC) 9009 to match the built-in cmd.exe result), and I've been trying to get the message added for at least a year now.

Unfortunately, I can only push it so far before it has to work through the Windows team's process, and then there's nobody to push it along. All that could really be done from outside is to organise a "why don't you fix the dev experience" spam campaign, but I'm not going to condone that ;)

[uranusjr]

What would be the best channel to raise this issue to the Windows team from the outside? It does not need to be a spam campaign, but it’d be nice if we could direct the affected users somewhere instead of pypa/packaging-problems and various issue trackers, where the Windows team wouldn’t see.