Get started using Python on Windows for beginners

The following is a step-by-step guide for beginners interested in learning Python using Windows 10.

Set up your development environment

For beginners who are new to Python, we recommend you install Python from the Microsoft Store. Installing via the Microsoft Store uses the basic Python3 interpreter, but handles set up of your PATH settings for the current user (avoiding the need for admin access), in addition to providing automatic updates. This is especially helpful if you are in an educational environment or a part of an organization that restricts permissions or administrative access on your machine.

If you are using Python on Windows for web development, we recommend a different set up for your development environment. Rather than installing directly on Windows, we recommend installing and using Python via the Windows Subsystem for Linux. For help, see: Get started using Python for web development on Windows. If you’re interested in automating common tasks on your operating system, see our guide: Get started using Python on Windows for scripting and automation. For some advanced scenarios (like needing to access/modify Python’s installed files, make copies of binaries, or use Python DLLs directly), you may want to consider downloading a specific Python release directly from python.org or consider installing an alternative, such as Anaconda, Jython, PyPy, WinPython, IronPython, etc. We only recommend this if you are a more advanced Python programmer with a specific reason for choosing an alternative implementation.

Install Python

To install Python using the Microsoft Store:

Go to your Start menu (lower left Windows icon), type «Microsoft Store», select the link to open the store.

Once the store is open, select Search from the upper-right menu and enter «Python». Open «Python 3.9» from the results under Apps. Select Get.

Once Python has completed the downloading and installation process, open Windows PowerShell using the Start menu (lower left Windows icon). Once PowerShell is open, enter Python —version to confirm that Python3 has installed on your machine.

The Microsoft Store installation of Python includes pip, the standard package manager. Pip allows you to install and manage additional packages that are not part of the Python standard library. To confirm that you also have pip available to install and manage packages, enter pip —version .

Install Visual Studio Code

By using VS Code as your text editor / integrated development environment (IDE), you can take advantage of IntelliSense (a code completion aid), Linting (helps avoid making errors in your code), Debug support (helps you find errors in your code after you run it), Code snippets (templates for small reusable code blocks), and Unit testing (testing your code’s interface with different types of input).

VS Code also contains a built-in terminal that enables you to open a Python command line with Windows Command prompt, PowerShell, or whatever you prefer, establishing a seamless workflow between your code editor and command line.

To install VS Code, download VS Code for Windows: https://code.visualstudio.com.

Once VS Code has been installed, you must also install the Python extension. To install the Python extension, you can select the VS Code Marketplace link or open VS Code and search for Python in the extensions menu (Ctrl+Shift+X).

Python is an interpreted language, and in order to run Python code, you must tell VS Code which interpreter to use. We recommend sticking with Python 3.7 unless you have a specific reason for choosing something different. Once you’ve installed the Python extension, select a Python 3 interpreter by opening the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P), start typing the command Python: Select Interpreter to search, then select the command. You can also use the Select Python Environment option on the bottom Status Bar if available (it may already show a selected interpreter). The command presents a list of available interpreters that VS Code can find automatically, including virtual environments. If you don’t see the desired interpreter, see Configuring Python environments.

To open the terminal in VS Code, select View > Terminal, or alternatively use the shortcut Ctrl+` (using the backtick character). The default terminal is PowerShell.

Inside your VS Code terminal, open Python by simply entering the command: python

Try the Python interpreter out by entering: print(«Hello World») . Python will return your statement «Hello World».

Install Git (optional)

If you plan to collaborate with others on your Python code, or host your project on an open-source site (like GitHub), VS Code supports version control with Git. The Source Control tab in VS Code tracks all of your changes and has common Git commands (add, commit, push, pull) built right into the UI. You first need to install Git to power the Source Control panel.

Download and install Git for Windows from the git-scm website.

An Install Wizard is included that will ask you a series of questions about settings for your Git installation. We recommend using all of the default settings, unless you have a specific reason for changing something.

If you’ve never worked with Git before, GitHub Guides can help you get started.

Hello World tutorial for some Python basics

Python, according to its creator Guido van Rossum, is a “high-level programming language, and its core design philosophy is all about code readability and a syntax which allows programmers to express concepts in a few lines of code.”

Python is an interpreted language. In contrast to compiled languages, in which the code you write needs to be translated into machine code in order to be run by your computer’s processor, Python code is passed straight to an interpreter and run directly. You just type in your code and run it. Let’s try it!

With your PowerShell command line open, enter python to run the Python 3 interpreter. (Some instructions prefer to use the command py or python3 , these should also work). You will know that you’re successful because a >>> prompt with three greater-than symbols will display.

There are several built-in methods that allow you to make modifications to strings in Python. Create a variable, with: variable = ‘Hello World!’ . Press Enter for a new line.

Print your variable with: print(variable) . This will display the text «Hello World!».

Find out the length, how many characters are used, of your string variable with: len(variable) . This will display that there are 12 characters used. (Note that the blank space it counted as a character in the total length.)

Convert your string variable to upper-case letters: variable.upper() . Now convert your string variable to lower-case letters: variable.lower() .

Count how many times the letter «l» is used in your string variable: variable.count(«l») .

Search for a specific character in your string variable, let’s find the exclamation point, with: variable.find(«!») . This will display that the exclamation point is found in the 11th position character of the string.

Replace the exclamation point with a question mark: variable.replace(«!», «?») .

To exit Python, you can enter exit() , quit() , or select Ctrl-Z.

Hope you had fun using some of Python’s built-in string modification methods. Now try creating a Python program file and running it with VS Code.

Hello World tutorial for using Python with VS Code

The VS Code team has put together a great Getting Started with Python tutorial walking through how to create a Hello World program with Python, run the program file, configure and run the debugger, and install packages like matplotlib and numpy to create a graphical plot inside a virtual environment.

Open PowerShell and create an empty folder called «hello», navigate into this folder, and open it in VS Code:

Once VS Code opens, displaying your new hello folder in the left-side Explorer window, open a command line window in the bottom panel of VS Code by pressing Ctrl+` (using the backtick character) or selecting View > Terminal. By starting VS Code in a folder, that folder becomes your «workspace». VS Code stores settings that are specific to that workspace in .vscode/settings.json, which are separate from user settings that are stored globally.

Continue the tutorial in the VS Code docs: Create a Python Hello World source code file.

Create a simple game with Pygame

Pygame is a popular Python package for writing games — encouraging students to learn programming while creating something fun. Pygame displays graphics in a new window, and so it will not work under the command-line-only approach of WSL. However, if you installed Python via the Microsoft Store as detailed in this tutorial, it will work fine.

Once you have Python installed, install pygame from the command line (or the terminal from within VS Code) by typing python -m pip install -U pygame —user .

Test the installation by running a sample game : python -m pygame.examples.aliens

All being well, the game will open a window. Close the window when you are done playing.

Here’s how to start writing your own game.

Open PowerShell (or Windows Command Prompt) and create an empty folder called «bounce». Navigate to this folder and create a file named «bounce.py». Open the folder in VS Code:

Using VS Code, enter the following Python code (or copy and paste it):

Save it as: bounce.py .

From the PowerShell terminal, run it by entering: python bounce.py .

Try adjusting some of the numbers to see what effect they have on your bouncing ball.

Read more about writing games with pygame at pygame.org.

Resources for continued learning

We recommend the following resources to support you in continuing to learn about Python development on Windows.

Online courses for learning Python

Introduction to Python on Microsoft Learn: Try the interactive Microsoft Learn platform and earn experience points for completing this module covering the basics on how to write basic Python code, declare variables, and work with console input and output. The interactive sandbox environment makes this a great place to start for folks who don’t have their Python development environment set up yet.

Python on Pluralsight: 8 Courses, 29 Hours: The Python learning path on Pluralsight offers online courses covering a variety of topics related to Python, including a tool to measure your skill and find your gaps.

LearnPython.org Tutorials: Get started on learning Python without needing to install or set anything up with these free interactive Python tutorials from the folks at DataCamp.

The Python.org Tutorials: Introduces the reader informally to the basic concepts and features of the Python language and system.

Learning Python on Lynda.com: A basic introduction to Python.

Working with Python in VS Code

Editing Python in VS Code: Learn more about how to take advantage of VS Code’s autocomplete and IntelliSense support for Python, including how to customize their behavior. or just turn them off.

Linting Python: Linting is the process of running a program that will analyse code for potential errors. Learn about the different forms of linting support VS Code provides for Python and how to set it up.

Debugging Python: Debugging is the process of identifying and removing errors from a computer program. This article covers how to initialize and configure debugging for Python with VS Code, how to set and validate breakpoints, attach a local script, perform debugging for different app types or on a remote computer, and some basic troubleshooting.

Unit testing Python: Covers some background explaining what unit testing means, an example walkthrough, enabling a test framework, creating and running your tests, debugging tests, and test configuration settings.

Get started using Python on Windows for scripting and automation

The following is a step-by-step guide for setting up your developer environment and getting you started using Python for scripting and automating file system operations on Windows.

This article will cover setting up your environment to use some of the helpful libraries in Python that can automate tasks across platforms, like searching your file system, accessing the internet, parsing file types, etc., from a Windows-centered approach. For Windows-specific operations, check out ctypes, a C-compatible foreign function library for Python, winreg, functions exposing the Windows registry API to Python, and Python/WinRT, enabling access Windows Runtime APIs from Python.

Set up your development environment

When using Python to write scripts that perform file system operations, we recommend you install Python from the Microsoft Store. Installing via the Microsoft Store uses the basic Python3 interpreter, but handles set up of your PATH settings for the current user (avoiding the need for admin access), in addition to providing automatic updates.

If you are using Python for web development on Windows, we recommend a different setup using the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Find a walkthrough in our guide: Get started using Python for web development on Windows. If you’re brand new to Python, try our guide: Get started using Python on Windows for beginners. For some advanced scenarios (like needing to access/modify Python’s installed files, make copies of binaries, or use Python DLLs directly), you may want to consider downloading a specific Python release directly from python.org or consider installing an alternative, such as Anaconda, Jython, PyPy, WinPython, IronPython, etc. We only recommend this if you are a more advanced Python programmer with a specific reason for choosing an alternative implementation.

Install Python

To install Python using the Microsoft Store:

Go to your Start menu (lower left Windows icon), type «Microsoft Store», select the link to open the store.

Once the store is open, select Search from the upper-right menu and enter «Python». Open «Python 3.7» from the results under Apps. Select Get.

Once Python has completed the downloading and installation process, open Windows PowerShell using the Start menu (lower left Windows icon). Once PowerShell is open, enter Python —version to confirm that Python3 has been installed on your machine.

The Microsoft Store installation of Python includes pip, the standard package manager. Pip allows you to install and manage additional packages that are not part of the Python standard library. To confirm that you also have pip available to install and manage packages, enter pip —version .

Install Visual Studio Code

By using VS Code as your text editor / integrated development environment (IDE), you can take advantage of IntelliSense (a code completion aid), Linting (helps avoid making errors in your code), Debug support (helps you find errors in your code after you run it), Code snippets (templates for small reusable code blocks), and Unit testing (testing your code’s interface with different types of input).

Download VS Code for Windows and follow the installation instructions: https://code.visualstudio.com.

Install the Microsoft Python extension

You will need to install the Microsoft Python extension in order to take advantage of the VS Code support features. Learn more.

Open the VS Code Extensions window by entering Ctrl+Shift+X (or use the menu to navigate to View > Extensions).

In the top Search Extensions in Marketplace box, enter: Python.

Find the Python (ms-python.python) by Microsoft extension and select the green Install button.

Open the integrated PowerShell terminal in VS Code

VS Code contains a built-in terminal that enables you to open a Python command line with PowerShell, establishing a seamless workflow between your code editor and command line.

Open the terminal in VS Code, select View > Terminal, or alternatively use the shortcut Ctrl+` (using the backtick character).

The default terminal should be PowerShell, but if you need to change it, use Ctrl+Shift+P to enter the command pallette. Enter Terminal: Select Default Shell and a list of terminal options will display containing PowerShell, Command Prompt, WSL, etc. Select the one you’d like to use and enter Ctrl+Shift+` (using the backtick) to create a new terminal.

Inside your VS Code terminal, open Python by entering: python

Try the Python interpreter out by entering: print(«Hello World») . Python will return your statement «Hello World».

To exit Python, you can enter exit() , quit() , or select Ctrl-Z.

Install Git (optional)

If you plan to collaborate with others on your Python code, or host your project on an open-source site (like GitHub), VS Code supports version control with Git. The Source Control tab in VS Code tracks all of your changes and has common Git commands (add, commit, push, pull) built right into the UI. You first need to install Git to power the Source Control panel.

Download and install Git for Windows from the git-scm website.

An Install Wizard is included that will ask you a series of questions about settings for your Git installation. We recommend using all of the default settings, unless you have a specific reason for changing something.

If you’ve never worked with Git before, GitHub Guides can help you get started.

Example script to display the structure of your file system directory

Common system administration tasks can take a huge amount of time, but with a Python script, you can automate these tasks so that they take no time at all. For example, Python can read the contents of your computer’s file system and perform operations like printing an outline of your files and directories, moving folders from one directory to another, or renaming hundreds of files. Normally, tasks like these could take up a ton of time if you were to perform them manually. Use a Python script instead!

Let’s begin with a simple script that walks a directory tree and displays the directory structure.

Open PowerShell using the Start menu (lower left Windows icon).

Create a directory for your project: mkdir python-scripts , then open that directory: cd python-scripts .

Create a few directories to use with our example script:

Create a few files within those directories to use with our script:

Create a new python file in your python-scripts directory:

Open your project in VS Code by entering: code .

Open the VS Code File Explorer window by entering Ctrl+Shift+E (or use the menu to navigate to View > Explorer) and select the list-directory-contents.py file that you just created. The Microsoft Python extension will automatically load a Python interpreter. You can see which interpreter was loaded on the bottom of your VS Code window.

Python is an interpreted language, meaning that it acts as a virtual machine, emulating a physical computer. There are different types of Python interpreters that you can use: Python 2, Python 3, Anaconda, PyPy, etc. In order to run Python code and get Python IntelliSense, you must tell VS Code which interpreter to use. We recommend sticking with the interpreter that VS Code chooses by default (Python 3 in our case) unless you have a specific reason for choosing something different. To change the Python interpreter, select the interpreter currently displayed in blue bar on the bottom of your VS Code window or open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and enter the command Python: Select Interpreter. This will display a list of the Python interpreters that you currently have installed. Learn more about configuring Python environments.

Paste the following code into your list-directory-contents.py file and then select save:

Open the VS Code integrated terminal (Ctrl+`, using the backtick character) and enter the src directory where you just saved your Python script:

Run the script in PowerShell with:

You should see output that looks like this:

Use Python to print that file system directory output to it’s own text file by entering this command directly in your PowerShell terminal: python3 list-directory-contents.py > food-directory.txt

Congratulations! You’ve just written an automated systems administration script that reads the directory and files you created and uses Python to display, and then print, the directory structure to it’s own text file.

If you’re unable to install Python 3 from the Microsoft Store, see this issue for an example of how to handle the pathing for this sample script.

Example script to modify all files in a directory

This example uses the files and directories you just created, renaming each of the files by adding the file’s last modified date to the beginning of the filename.

Inside the src folder in your python-scripts directory, create a new Python file for your script:

Open the update-filenames.py file, paste the following code into the file, and save it:

os.getmtime returns a timestamp in ticks, which is not easily readable. It must be converted to a standard datetime string first.

Test your update-filenames.py script by running it: python3 update-filenames.py and then running your list-directory-contents.py script again: python3 list-directory-contents.py

You should see output that looks like this:

Use Python to print the new file system directory names with the last-modified timestamp prepended to it’s own text file by entering this command directly in your PowerShell terminal: python3 list-directory-contents.py > food-directory-last-modified.txt

Hope you learned a few fun things about using Python scripts for automating basic systems administration tasks. There is, of course, a ton more to know, but we hope this got you started on the right foot. We’ve shared a few additional resources to continue learning below.