How to Launch Python Files Using Windows Command Prompt

Open Start

. Click the Windows icon in the lower left corner of the screen. The Start menu will pop up.

Find Command Prompt. Type cmd to find Command Prompt.

Click on the program

Command Prompt appears at the top of the Start menu. Command Prompt will open.

Switch to the directory containing the Python file. Type the command cd and space, then enter the “Location” address of the Python file and press ↵ Enter .

• For example, to open a Python file located in the “Files” folder on the Desktop, you need to enter cd desktop/Files here.
• If you copied the file path then type cd with a space and then press Ctrl + V to paste the path.

Enter the command “python” along with the filename to open. Enter the command python file.py , replacing file with the Python filename.

• For example, if the Python file is named “script” then you need to enter python script.py here.
• If the Python file has more than one space in the name, we enclose the name with the file extension in quotes (e.g. python "my script.py" ).

Press ↵ Enter . The command will be executed and open the Python file in the Python program available on the computer.

• If the error 'python' is not recognized as an internal or external command appears after pressing Enter , you need to add Python to the PATH list and then try again.

Show hidden folders. Since one of the directories containing the Python installation directory is most likely hidden, we need to unhide them before continuing:

• Open File Explorer
  

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• Click the View tab.
• Check the “Hidden items” box.

Go to the Python directory. In some cases, the path to Python will be “C:Python27”; however, if you have installed the latest version of Python using the default settings, the program will be in a hidden folder. You can copy the appropriate file path by:

• Click This PC on the left side of the File Explorer window.
• Double-click the hard drive located in the “Devices and drives” section.
• Scroll down and double-click the “Users” folder.
• Double-click the folder with your username.
• Scroll down and double click “AppData”.
• Double-click “Local”.
• Scroll down and double-click “Programs”.
• Double click on the “Python” folder.
• Double-click the Python folder with the appropriate version number (e.g. “Python36”).

Copy the path to the Python directory. Click the address bar at the top of the File Explorer window to highlight the content, then press Ctrl + C to copy the last address.

Open the Power User menu. To proceed, right-click on the Start icon

. A menu will pop up.

• You can also press ⊞ Win + X to open the Power User pop-up menu.

Click the System option located in the pop-up menu. A new window will open.

Click System info . This link is in the upper right corner of the window. The System Information window will open.

Click the Advanced system settings link. This link is located in the upper left of the System Information window. At this point, another window will pop up.

Click Environment Variables… . This option is located in the lower-right corner of the pop-up window.

Look for the “Path” heading in the “User variables” table. This pane is at the top of the Environment Variables window.

• You may need to scroll your mouse pointer up or down on the “User variables” pane to find the “Path” variable.

Double-click the “Path” heading. A window will pop up.

Click the New option on the right side of the window. A text field will appear in the middle of the window.

Paste the path that you copied earlier. Press Ctrl + V to paste the content. The path you copied will appear in the text field in the center of the window.