Error: Access is denied when trying to create a virtual environment with virtualenv

Question

I'm trying to create a virtual environment on my machine with the virtualenv configuration.

1st step: In the Windows command prompt window I typed the command:

pip install virtualenv

So far okay, it was installed successfully.

2nd Step: I tried to create a virtual environment in the folder named programaria with the command:

virtualenv programaria

However, in this step after entering the command virtualenv programaria , there is output the error message:

Access denied.

I also tried opening cmd as administrator and the problem persists.

C:\Users\Vilmara>pip install virtualenv
Requirement already satisfied: virtualenv in c:\users\vilmara\appdata\local\pro
Requirement already satisfied: six<2,>=1.9.0 in c:\users\vilmara\appdata\local\
Requirement already satisfied: platformdirs<3,>=2 in c:\users\vilmara\appdata\l
Requirement already satisfied: distlib<1,>=0.3.1 in c:\users\vilmara\appdata\lo
Requirement already satisfied: filelock<4,>=3.2 in c:\users\vilmara\appdata\loc

C:\Users\Vilmara>virtualenv programaria
Acesso negado.

I need to build machine learning models to study and if I install the tools and libraries directly on the machine, it may interfere with the tools previously installed on my operating system such as Python version, libraries etc. To avoid this problem, as a good practice to start this new project I would like to set up a virtual environment, to create a separate instance in which I also control the configuration of tool versions needed for my studies to ensure an isolated environment for explorations.

Answer 1

Have you tried opening your prompt as an Administrator?