title: How to start a Spark Shell using pyspark in Windows?
body: <p>I am a beginner in Spark and trying to follow instructions from here on how to initialize Spark shell from Python using cmd: <a href="http://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/quick-start.html" rel="nofollow">http://spark.apache.org/docs/latest/quick-start.html</a></p>
  
  <p>But when I run in cmd the following:</p>
  
  <pre><code>C:\Users\Alex\Desktop\spark-1.4.1-bin-hadoop2.4\&gt;c:\Python27\python bin\pyspark 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>then I receive the following error message:</p>
  
  <pre><code>File "bin\pyspark", line 21 
  export SPARK_HOME="$(cd ="$(cd "`dirname "$0"`"/..; pwd)" 
  SyntaxError: invalid syntax
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What am I doing wrong here? </p>
  
  <p>P.S. When in cmd I try just <code>C:\Users\Alex\Desktop\spark-1.4.1-bin-hadoop2.4&gt;bin\pyspark</code></p>
  
  <p>then I receive <code>""python" is not recognized as internal or external command, operable program or batch file".</code></p>