windows - Installing pyinstaller via pip leads to "failed to create process"

Question

Does anyone know why pyinstaller immediately fails after installed via pip via anaconda 32bit?

I installed pyinstaller via pip install pyinstaller through the anaconda command prompt on Windows 64 bit using 32 bit anaconda (because I want to create 32 bit executables)

Yes I read pyinstaller --version failed to create a process and pip/easy_install failure: failed to create process and How to install pyinstaller using pip

I did not rename any files I installed anaconda 15 mins ago, pycharm 10 mins ago, and pyinstaller 5 mins ago. I uninstalled pyinstaller via pup uninstall and reinstalled in the anaconda scripts folder, this did nothing.

Any insight anyone? #windowsfrustrations Path C:UsersmeAnacondaLibsite-packages>PyInstaller

Answer 1

[Update: So apparently the root fix for this is in setuptools. The fix went into setuptools version 24.3.1 released July 23, 2016. Upgrading to anything newer than that should take care of this.]

It turns out this is a bug in pip. As mentioned in the other answer it has a problem with spaces in the path to the python install.

Specifically it leaves out quote marks in the generated launcher scripts. The scripts can be found in Scripts (e.g. C:Program FilesPython 3.5Scripts). For pyinstaller there 4 pyi-* and a pyinstaller-script.py scripts.

You can work around this relatively easily by editing the first line of each script. The generated first lines will look something like:

#!c:program filespython 3.5python.exe
# EASY-INSTALL-ENTRY-SCRIPT: 'PyInstaller==3.1.1','console_scripts','pyinstaller'

Just add quotes around the shebang command, like so:

#!"c:program filespython 3.5python.exe"