windows: Pre-installed mingw python2.7.exe causes issues about setup-python

[konradpabjan]

We add MinGW to PATH by design. We use choco install -y mingw to install it. This was added mostly to support GCC and make. It's rather an unintended consequence that Python 2.7 also gets added to PATH.

Whatever is in hostedtoolcache is Python that we manage ourselves. For Linux and Mac this is Python that we compile while for Windows we download it directly from https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/ so it doesn't make sense to throw in another distribution here.

It is possible to manually remove a variable from PATH without too much effort using Powershell on Windows so that's the best I can recommend if this is a blocker. Setup-python is only really meant to manipulate the PATH for the versions of python that are in hostedtoolcache

[sbc100]

Yes, its really that "unintended consequence" that is the problem.

I quite like to keep mingw in the path, but ideally without a broken python2.7 in there. I is there a way you can install mingw without python?

(Its unfortunate that the windows python distribution doesn't include "python2.7.exe" as well as "python.exe" since then putting your python path first would cause it to override the mingw one, which would be desirable)