before we begin with the installyou also get idlewhich is an interactive python shell this lets you run python commands in real-time interpreterwhich is great for testing ideas or playing around with new packages once you are done with the installopen your command-line interfacewindowsbutton- cmd this will open terminal similar to the ones available on mac and linux nowcheck that python is workingpython --version if you see version informationpython is installed and linked to the pathas it should be before we go oncheck that pip is workingpip --version virtualenv before we begin installing virtualenvlet' make sure we have the latest version of pip installedpip install --upgrade pip windows users will see command prompt like thisc:\some\directoryon mac you have on linux it is will be using to indicate terminal commands for the duration of this book use pip to install the virtualenv packagepip install virtualenv