Unable to set up Anaconda on Windows : Path problems

Question

I've been trying to setup Anaconda 1.8 on Windows 8.1 but cant get Windows to detect it for the life of me. I've tried adding it in the system path by editing the environment variables and adding C:\Anaconda.

I've tried the Cygwin route and tried to edit .bashrc and .profile, but the path doesn't seem to reflect the presence of Anaconda.

Powershell output

 PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> python
Python 2.7.3 (default, Apr 10 2012, 23:31:26) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

Answer 1

Look closely at your PATH. If you installed Python before, maybe from the official Python.org installer, it may appear in your PATH before the C:\Anaconda\bin directory. If so, then this is your problem, and you should remove that other Python installation if you haven't customized it in any way. If you have customized it, i.e. you have installed packages into it and you don't want to remove it, then you need to move it to the end of your PATH, after the C:\Anaconda\bin entry.

For a nice, graphical editor for your PATH, check out Path Editor: http://patheditor2.codeplex.com/