The “Python is not recognized as an internal or external command” error is encountered in the command prompt of Windows. The error is caused when Python’s executable file is not found in an environment variable as a result of the Python command in the Windows command prompt.
Solution
To resolve this error, follow the steps below:
Find a folder with the installed Python version as its name in
X:\Program Files[where XX is the drive where Windows is installed; e.g.,C:\Program Files\Python36]. If such a folder does not exist, download and install the latest version of Python here.Open this folder and copy its path.
Right-click This PC, then go to Properties => Advanced system settings => Environment variables.
In the window that appears when a
pathvariable exists, select it, and click Edit; otherwise, click New.In the next dialogue box, click on New and paste the previously copied path of the folder; then, click OK.
I have working a lot recently with visual studio code and why not. I am into Power platform and with power platform developer extensions focused more on client side technologies, I association with visual studio code shall be for long. And whenever I develop PCF Controls, I am on this platform. Where you are an expert in something and have done
something many a times, you frequently tend to overlook some areas which you haven’t thought about ever.
I realized that when one of my blog readers reported he is getting the error while using msbuild command and building his PCF control using Visual studio code. It just always works for me and I never thought that if someone get stuck in that step.
I am from Dynamics 365 and Power platform background and I keep my posts related to it. But if your are here with the issue but belong to a different technology, you shall find the blog equally useful.
Precisely, below scenario resolutions are discussed in this blog.
- You get an error – “msbuild is not recognized as internal or external command” while executing msbuild command from your regular command prompt
- You get an error – “msbuild is not recognized as internal or external command” while executing msbuild command from Visual studio code.
Please follow the below steps to resolve this.
- Navigate to your computer properties
2. Click on Advanced system settings.
3. Click of Environment variables button
4. Add the msbuild.exe file to the path variable
Path for visual studio 2017
%ProgramFiles[x86]%\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\BinPath for Visual studio 2019
%ProgramFiles[x86]%\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Current\BinAll required steps are now done. Make sure to reopen your command prompt or visual studio code terminal. Now if you run msbuild command, it should work fine.
P.S – You do not need to perform these steps if working with Developer command prompt for Visual studio.
Hope this small tip helped!
You can find tons of useful information in my blog to deal with Dynamics 365 or Power platform.
Also, if you are faced with a really challenging situation, you can seek the assistance of Dynamics 365 Consultants who can save you plenty of time by getting to the roots of the problem and fixing it faster.
Debajit Dutta
Business Solutions MVP