Windows: Installing Python & its scientific computing packages
While the overall recommendations will not change, the details will always
be dated. These notes were updated 12 October 2012.
If you're reading this much after these dates, you may encounter changes or,
in fact, may benefit from more up-to-date procedures and packages.
Basic Windows Install:
- Update your version of Windows.
- As appropriate for your machine, download the
64-bit
or the
32-bit
Windows EPD 7.3 Installer.
Then wait ... this is a large download (> 250 MB).
- Once the download is complete, depending on your browser, it should
automatically uncompress and open an installer. (If not, find where it
was downloaded and then double-click the download file to manually
uncompress. This should open a window.)
- There you'll see the installer. Double click on this and work through
the steps presented.
iPython
iPython is a shell that makes working interactively with Python and
developing Python programs much more convenient than dealing with
the Python interpretter directly.
It comes as part of the above Python distributions.
You can change iPython's default text editor (NotePad) to your favorite
editor, or one that is at least more functional, by following these
instructions.
Programmer's NotePad
One particularly functional and free editor is Programmer's NotePad. Take
a look at these instructions
to see how to install and configure it to work with iPython.