Install Python on Windows Without Admin Access

Published: Jul 13, 2020
Updated: Nov 25, 2021

Sometimes you need to install developer tools on a Windows machine, but you don’t have Admin access. How to get around this, you say? Well, instead of running an installer, you download the binaries you need then add them to your PATH.

Note: This will only install the embeddable package of python, which does not include pip. If you need pip, then use the full package, which may require admin access, sigh.

Install #

  1. Get familiar with Windows Environment Variables in Command Prompt

  2. Download a zip of the 64-bit Windows binary https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.9.9/python-3.9.9-embed-amd64.zip

  3. Create folder %USERPROFILE%\bin\python, then extract the zip contents into this folder

  4. Open Command Prompt and run

     setx PYTHON_HOME "%USERPROFILE%\bin\python\python-3.9.9-embed-amd64"
 setx PATH "%PYTHON_HOME%;%PATH%"

  5. Restart Command Prompt

  6. Confirm installation

     python --version