title: Create Windows Python virtualenv with a specific version of Python
body: <p>I have multiple versions of Python. I need to create a virtualenv for my project and make sure that it's using Python 2.7.</p>
  
  <p>I've tried to accomplish this with the combination of <a href="http://timmyreilly.azurewebsites.net/python-pip-virtualenv-installation-on-windows/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this guide</a> for <code>virtualenv</code> on Windows and <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1534210/use-different-python-version-with-virtualenv">this SO post</a> on <code>virtualenv</code> with a specific kind of Python.</p>
  
  <p>Unfortunately it's not working, which is probably because the latter resource was written by someone using Linux.</p>
  
  <p>Here's what I did:</p>
  
  <pre><code>C:\Python27\Scripts&gt;pip install virtualenv You are using pip version
  6.0.6, however version 9.0.1 is available. You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command. Collecting virtualenv   Downloading virtualenv-15.1.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (1.8MB)
      100% |################################| 1.8MB 3.7MB/s eta 0:00:01 Installing collected packages: virtualenv
  
  Successfully installed virtualenv-15.1.0
  
  C:\Python27\Scripts&gt;pip install virtualenvwrapper-win You are using pip version 6.0.6, however version 9.0.1 is available. You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command. Collecting virtualenvwrapper-win   Downloading virtualenvwrapper-win-1.2.1.zip Requirement already satisfied (use
  --upgrade to upgrade): virtualenv in c:\python27\lib\site-packages (from virtualenvwrapper
  -win) Installing collected packages: virtualenvwrapper-win   Running setup.py install for virtualenvwrapper-win Successfully installed virtualenvwrapper-win-1.2.1
  
  C:\Python27\Scripts&gt;mkvirtualenv c:\users\hackr\Desktop\P27_D19  --python=C:\Python27\python.exe
  </code></pre>
  
  <blockquote>
  <pre><code>'python.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
  </code></pre>
    
    <p>'virtualenv.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
    operable program or batch file.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p><strong>Update:</strong> I just got this to work using plain <code>virtualenv</code> instead of the recommended <code>mkvirtualenv</code> command, which I assume is part of the wrapper they had me install. If someone would like to help me understand what happened and if there are any downfalls of not using the wrapper, that would be a good way to write up the answer.    </p>