Why does Python never add itself to the Windows path?

[Dustan]

WaterWalk wrote:
> Ben Sizer wrote:
> > I've installed several different versions of Python across several
> > different versions of MS Windows, and not a single time was the Python
> > directory or the Scripts subdirectory added to the PATH environment
> > variable. Every time, I've had to go through and add this by hand, to
> > have something resembling a usable Python installation. No such
> > problems on Linux, whether it be Mandrake/Mandriva, Fedora Core, or
> > Kubuntu. So why is the Windows install half-crippled by default? I just
> > rediscovered this today when trying to run one of the Turbogears
> > scripts, but this has puzzled me for years now.
> >
>
> Well, after Python is installed on a Windows platform, files with
> extention ".py" or ".pyw" are automatically associated with python or
> pythonw. If a python script is double-clicked or input something like
> "sth.py" in the "cmd" box, the python interpreter is automatically
> called. I don't see any proplem or inconvenience with this.

In the command line, entering "python" does not run the python
interpreter (unless you modify the settings yourself).