Question

Is it possible to have IPython (0.12) installed on the same
system with two different versions of Python (v 2.7 and 3.2)? Currently I have both versions of Python running happily on my system.

I am using two machines, one with Windows 7 64-bit, the other XP SP2 32-bit, and both have Python 2.7.2 and 3.2 installed. I have been using IPython with Python 2.7 w/o any problems for a while on both.

Now I would like to have 3.2 available too with IPython, but when I try to run the binary windows IPython installer I get this error toward the end of the install:

*** run_installscript: internal error 0xFFFFFFFF ***

and no shortcuts/entries into Start Menu etc are created.
(I ran the install as adminstrator under Win 7) I am running into the same problem with XP and Win 7.

After poking around the net and SO for a while I saw references for
getting setuptools. Unfortunately, there’s no version for Python 3.x
but it was suggested to use distribute.py instead which I ran and
installed. I am not sure how to proceed next. And I’m not even sure it
is possible to do this (though I think it is 🙂

Any suggestions?

UPDATE: There was a problem with import readline not working with Python 3.2.3, but I was able to fix it by downloading pyreadline-2.0-dev1.win32.exe which works with Python 3.2.3 .. the above problem remains unfortunately.

Answer 1

Ok, here’s my solution to get IPython 0.12.1 to work with both Python ver
2.7.x and 3.2.x on the same system (ie. under Windows 7 64 bit and XP SP2 32 bit). It’s not
perfect, but works, and hopefully will help others. Where I am showing directories they refer to XP (but should be adjusted accordingly for Windows 7)

Steps for both:

1. Install both versions of Python via the binary windows installer provided at
   Python.org

2. Install this version of pyreadline pyreadline-2.0-dev1.win32.exe which works
   for both versions of Python (I could not get the widely available version 1.7 to work with Python 3.2.x)

3. I am not sure if distribute.py is necessary, I’d skip it on the
   first try.

4. Download ipython-0.12.1.zip file and extract it. Place it under your Programs directory and cd into it (I’ll call this the ipython_dir) [I tried the binary installer numerous times without success]

For Python 3.2 (easier)

In the ipython_dir:

c:\python32\pyton.exe setup.py install

will create ipython3.exe in c:\python32\Scripts that can be used to
fire up iPython

For Python 2.7 (a bit odd)

The above method failed. However, it is possible to start IPython from the ipython_dir with

c:\python27\python.exe  ipython.py

I can’t explain why this is so, but since I use Console2 I can hide
these two ways of starting IPython.

Summary:

To start IPython with v 2.7.x of Python:

c:\python27\python.exe "C:\Program Files..\ipython_dir\ipython.py"

To start IPython with v 3.2.x of Python:

c:\python32\Scripts\python3.exe

That was a lot of work and took most of the day, so I hope posting the steps above
will save someone else a lot of time (and help me remember what I have to do next time I struggle with this)

Thanks everyone for their suggestions.

Addendum: None of the above resulted in shortcuts or entries in the Start/Program Menus. Shortcuts can be created manually, or in my case aren’t necessary since I’m using a special shell (Console2) to run IPython.