Windows specific installation instructions for Python

Wondering why the Windows bullet point in the installation instructions links to a Microsoft page suggesting you use the MSStore to install python.

The MSStore version is known to have a number of issues, mostly regarding paths and write perms.

Since most people are bound to be using windows, I suggest the link changes to the docs.python.org page.

The windows installer is the officially recommended way of installing Python.

Hi @antoniouaa :wave: Welcome to the Exercism forums. :smile:

That document has both the docs.python.org link (it is the first link in that bullet point), as well as the Microsoft docs link (the second link in the bullet point).

The reasoning was that many many students were installing from the Microsoft store and not the PSF installers, so a link to Microsoft docs on installation might be helpful. Since the linked article also has detailed instructions for setting up VSCode and git (with links out to other dev setups and tutorials), it felt like a solid “jumping off point” for Windows based Python newbies.

That installation document also has a link to a fairly comprehensive article from Real Python (in the first paragraph), which goes over the the tradeoffs of Windows store vs installer vs WSL pretty thoroughly, so I don’t think we are misleading anyone.

At one point, we also had Anaconda, Homebrew and Chocolatey instructions, but decided that aiming for exhaustive or super-detailed instructions by platform was not going to be helpful , and would quickly become outdated/overly opinionated/problematic.

All of that said, if you think the docs could be improved with added/changed information, I’d welcome suggestions – but please propose them in a thread here on the forum first before making a PR, so they can be discussed by the community.