Installing and Managing pip for Multiple Windows Python Installs

pip is an incredibly handy package manager for Python. As of Python 3.4, it is included with default distributions of Python.¹ Once you are used to using it, you will miss having it when stuck working with older versions.

Fortunately, pip can be installed to pre-3.4 versions of Python in a few simple steps. Oddly enough, though the process is simple, a complete solution wasn't easily available (via very quick Googling, anyway) so I'll write the process here.

Assumptions

For the steps below, assume a Windows platform with the following structure:

C:\
    Python32\
        python32.exe
    Python33\
        python33.exe
    Python34\
        python.exe
        Scripts\
            pip.exe
            pip3.exe
            pip3.4.exe

The above tree is incomplete of course; only relevant portions are included.

Each C:\PythonXX directory is on the system PATH, so the older version executables have been renamed to not conflict with each other, e.g. Python32\python.exe was renamed Python32\python32.exe. In this setup, executing python is intended to always default to the latest version installed.

Given this setup, assume you want to install pip to Python 3.3.

Steps

1. Download get_pip.py from https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/installing.html

2. Navigate to the directory of get_pip.py and run python33 get_pip.py. The version of Python used to run the script must be the one to which you want pip installed.

3. get_pip should successfully execute (it may install e.g. setuptools as well, but this happens automatically), and have placed pip.exe, pip3.3.exe, and some more files in C:\Python33\Scripts. Note the versioned executable, in this case pip3.3.exe, is helpful to specify for which version of Python you want to run pip.

4. Add C:\Python33\Scripts\; to the system PATH (don't forget the trailing semicolon). There are plenty of guides out there for how to do this. Here is one for Windows 7/8.

5. There may now be multiple versions of pip.exe on the path, thus executing pip may not default to the version of Python desired. You can check which is used with pip --version. If you want pip to default to e.g. the latest Python, delete C:\Python33\Scripts\pip.exe and use the versioned executables (e.g. pip3.3) for older versions. You may have to restart the command prompt/terminal for these changes to take effect.

6. Now it should be possible to run pip3.3 install [some package] and install a package to Python 3.3.

Final Layout

After the steps above, the sample layout from the "Assumptions" section should now look like this:

C:\
    Python32\
        python32.exe
    Python33\
        python33.exe
        Scripts\
            pip3.3.exe
    Python34\
        python.exe
        Scripts\
            pip.exe
            pip3.4.exe

Notes