I found the answer to my problem. My virtual environment was correctly set up, I just needed to run my code through the version of python found in the scripts folder of my virtual environment.
The python file you are trying to run can be found anywhere on your local machine as long as it uses python from that environment, for example
C:\anypath\onlocalmachine> C:\env\Scripts\python.exe helloworld.py
I was making the mistake of putting my python file in the virtual environment and attempting to run the following WRONG code
C:\env> helloworld.py
I thought that I was supposed to be working entirely within the virtual environment Thanks for the help in the comments rebelious