After creating a virtual environment on win 7 (64bit) with: py -3.7 -m venv venv Running venv\Scripts\activate.bat will yield this result: \Common was unexpected at this time. (venv) C:\... My PATH variable contains a path that starts with: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\... To me this looks like this issue for virtualenv: https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/35 https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/pull/839 Running: (venv) C:\Tools\venv_test>where python C:\Python34\python.exe This is my default python on PATH. Doing this with virtualenv: (virtualenv) C:\Tools\venv_test>where python C:\Tools\venv_test\virtualenv\Scripts\python.exe C:\Python34\python.exe I really hope this is not a duplicate.

Basically everyone has that directory in their PATH - we'd be hearing a lot more issues if it were a consistent bug. Can you share the full contents of your activate.bat file? And if it's okay, your full PATH variable (before and after running activate.bat) (You may not want to share PATH if there are applications in there that you don't want to be seen publicly - in that case, can you randomize letters rather than deleting them? e.g. "System32"->"Xborpm99" That way we won't lose potentially important information to this bug like punctuation.)

I have attached the activate.bat script that got generated by venv. My current path looks like this (added line breaks for readability): C:\Program Files\Git\bin; C:\Tools\antlr; C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath; C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath; C:\windows\system32; C:\windows; C:\windows\System32\Wbem; C:\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\; C:\Program Files (x86)\CheckPoint\Endpoint Security\Endpoint Common\bin; C:\Program Files\IBM\Informix\Client-SDK; C:\Program Files\IBM\Informix\Client-SDK\bin\netf20; C:\Python34\; C:\Python34\Scripts; C:\Dwimperl\perl\bin; C:\Dwimperl\perl\site\bin; C:\Dwimperl\c\bin; C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin; C:\Program Files\Git LFS; C:\Users\a0000000\Downloads\chromedriver_win32; C:\Program Files (x86)\PuTTY\; C:\Program Files\doxygen\bin; C:\Strawberry\c\bin; C:\Strawberry\perl\site\bin; C:\Strawberry\perl\bin; C:\Projects\tex\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\x64\; C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2017b\runtime\win64; C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2017b\bin; C:\Program Files (x86)\Koenmdpk\AG-WC\Version Selector Plus\; %AGWCROOT%\bin; %SSLROOT%; %IBISUROOT%; C:\Program Files (x86)\Sennheiser\SoftphoneSDK\; C:\Program Files\dotnet\; C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\; C:\HashiCorp\Vagrant\bin; %systemroot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\; C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin; %systemroot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\; %systemroot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\; C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin %IBISUROOT%=C:\Program Files (x86)\Koenmdpk\ibisu\ %SSLROOT%=C:\Program Files (x86)\Koenmdpk\SSL\ %AGWCROOT%=C:\Program Files (x86)\Koenmdpk\AG-WC\3.60.30 %systemroot%=C:\windows

So if I replace this section from venv's activate.bat: if defined _OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH ( set "PATH=%_OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH%" ) else ( set "_OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH=%PATH%" ) with the part from virtualenv's activate.bat: REM if defined _OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH ( if not defined _OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH goto ENDIFVPATH1 set "PATH=%_OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH%" :ENDIFVPATH1 REM ) else ( if defined _OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH goto ENDIFVPATH2 set "_OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH=%PATH%" :ENDIFVPATH2 then venv\Scrtips\activate.bat seems to behave as expected.

Ok I think I found my problem. The system path of of my machine is ok but my user path contains a stray double quotation mark (") like this: C:\Program Files\Git\bin";C:\Tools\antlr;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath ... With this I am closing the double quotation of the .bat file too early and this leads to an early closing ). If I remove it venv\Script\activate.bat behaves as expected. Sorry for taking up your time.

> my user path contains a stray double quotation mark (") Steve, do you think we should work around this by first removing double quote characters from PATH? This will fix the user's PATH, making one or more directories searchable again, but it could have side effects.

We should be able to use alternate characters in the SET call, or just drop the quotes completely. In theory they make sense, but there's no trailing whitespace to worry about here.

 New changeset 574b324bdc9a126b5a4488c3613f11ad2555415e by Zachary Ware (Steve Dower) in branch 'master': bpo-36634: Fixes activate.bat when existing values contain double quotes (GH-15924) https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/574b324bdc9a126b5a4488c3613f11ad2555415e 

 New changeset 20f80bfc83506037e40d918fcac887cee9093c93 by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.8': bpo-36634: Fixes activate.bat when existing values contain double quotes (GH-15924) https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/20f80bfc83506037e40d918fcac887cee9093c93 

 New changeset 8a19a91e28b86592ee1ad9d1761e59b30d8511b9 by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.7': bpo-36634: Fixes activate.bat when existing values contain double quotes (GH-15924) https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/8a19a91e28b86592ee1ad9d1761e59b30d8511b9