Conda command broken for new anaconda python installations

Issue Type: Bug

When the Anaconda / Miniconda python distribution is installed with an installer of the current version on Windows, the conda is no longer added to the PATH environment variable.

See: https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/reference/release-notes/#what-s-new-in-anaconda-4-4

The python extension however still calls the command conda (and presumably others) as if they were available in PATH.

PS Z:\testfolder> conda activate myenv
conda : The term 'conda' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try 
again.
At line:1 char:1
+ conda activate myenv
+ ~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (conda:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

Steps to reproduce:

1. Run without debug any python file with an anaconda environment selected.

Extension version: 2019.4.11987 VS Code version: Code 1.33.1 (51b0b28134d51361cf996d2f0a1c698247aeabd8, 2019-04-11T08:27:14.102Z) OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.17763

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel® Core™ i5-5300U CPU @ 2.30GHz (4 x 2295)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled checker_imaging: disabled_off flash_3d: enabled flash_stage3d: enabled flash_stage3d_baseline: enabled gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on native_gpu_memory_buffers: disabled_software rasterization: enabled surface_synchronization: enabled_on video_decode: enabled webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled
Memory (System)	7.88GB (3.18GB free)
Process Argv	Z:\testfolder
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

[ryan-feeley]

Try typing conda init from powershell. I believe that will add to or generate a powershell profile.ps1 file that will automatically add the requisite paths going forward.

You may first need to first navigate to <Your install location>/Anaconda3/Scripts/conda.exe.

I don’t know if vscode or anaconda needs to fix this up, but I just went through this same pain.

[ryan-feeley]

I don’t know exactly what’s going on with the details, but it looks like the Python extension has a setting “Python > Terminal: Activate Environment” that attempts to call conda to activate a given environment (base, myenv, etc).

However, this command won’t execute properly unless your powershell startup script is already doing some work. Running conda init once will take care of setting this up, but by default it will activate the base environment any time you launch powershell (inside or outside of code). It looks like you can call conda deactivate to get a standard PS prompt. I suppose you could add that to your profile.ps1 script if you want to get a normal powershell prompt and to let vscode take care of activating your desired environment.

Looking at this thread, perhaps you could run

conda install powershell_shortcut to use the alternative way that does not require conda init.