Why isn't Anaconda for Windows Installing Properly?

Question

Anaconda 2 and 3 are installing without errors. I reboot because the installer prompts me to do so. When I open the Anaconda Prompt , python , pythonw or activate.bat aren't found. Looking in the Anaconda[2|3] folder, I can't find expected .exe and .bat files. What's going wrong?

I also notice that conda update --all wants to update many libs and eventually errors out.

Answer 1

Anaconda installs and updates can silently fail due to conflicts with 3rd party antivirus (for me it's WebRoot ) programs. An indicator of Anaconda antivirus conflicts is missing .exe and .bat files, and sometimes requests to reboot. The fix is to shutdown the antivirus program and reinstall Anaconda . I suspect Anaconda isn't following correct Windows installer procedures as it's the only installer than conflicts with WebRoot.

Answer 2

Inspired from : https://github.com/ContinuumIO/anaconda-issues/issues/732#issuecomment-

1. ****** UNINSTALL ALL PYTHON INSTALLATIONS, OTHERWISE THEY WILL GET MESSED UP AND YOU CANNOT CLEANLY UNINSTALL THEM WITHOUT WINDOWS RESTORE, or at least I think these two problems were related *****
   2. Install Miniconda
   3. As Admin open CMD and change to directory where Miniconda is installed
   4. pythonw.exe -E -s "Lib_nsis.py" addpath
   5. pythonw.exe -E -s "Lib_nsis.py" mkdirs
   6. pythonw.exe -E -s "Lib_nsis.py" mkmenus
   7. run conda init to start the environment. Then exit that CMD
   8. I then ran Anaconda prompt from start menu, but you likely can use CMD note) if you run "conda list", you will see no packages installed, but good news is conda will install pacakges, so:
   9. conda install numpy note) this will install conda! lol
   10. conda install anaconda

Answer 3

INSTALL IT IN A EXTERNAL DISK! I had a hard time tryig to install anaconda, because it was never complete, always missing anaconda navigator and the prompt. And after a cicle of install/unistall adopting different approaches, the only thing that made anaconda finally work properly in my computer was installing it in a exterior disk (or a pen drive).It just solved my problems, so give it a try!