conda 23.11 breaks Windows shortcuts, e.g. to Spyder

[schtandard]

What happened?

After updating to conda 23.11 the shortcut to open Spyder in the Windows start menu (automatically placed there by conda install spyder) does not work anymore. I assume that this applies to similar shortcuts of other packages to, though I tested it only with Spyder.

How to reproduce

• Download the miniconda installer from here and install it on Windows. It currently installs conda version 23.10.
• Add the conda-forge channel: conda config --add channels conda-forge.
• Create an environment with Spyder: conda create -n testenv spyder.
• This will create a shortcut "Spyder (testenv)" in the Windows start menu.
• Click that shortcut, it will open Spyder.
• Close Spyder.
• Update conda: conda update --all (in base environment). This should update to conda version 23.11.
• Click the Spyder shortcut again.
• Nothing happens.

Note that the update does not change the Spyder version or even anything in testenv, so this can't be an issue on their end, I think. Also you can still start Spyder from the command line (conda activate testenv && spyder), so Spyder itself is not broken by the update. I assume that something in the commands called by the shortcut is broken.

Conda Details

conda info

```shell active environment : None user config file : C:\Users\username\.condarc populated config files : C:\Users\username\.condarc conda version : 23.11.0 conda-build version : not installed python version : 3.11.5.final.0 solver : libmamba (default) virtual packages : __archspec=1=x86_64 __conda=23.11.0=0 __win=0=0 base environment : C:\Users\username\miniconda3 (writable) conda av data dir : C:\Users\username\miniconda3\etc\conda conda av metadata url : None channel URLs : https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge/win-64 https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge/noarch https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/win-64 https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/win-64 https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/msys2/win-64 https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/msys2/noarch package cache : C:\Users\username\miniconda3\pkgs C:\Users\username\.conda\pkgs C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\conda\conda\pkgs envs directories : C:\Users\username\miniconda3\envs C:\Users\username\.conda\envs C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\conda\conda\envs platform : win-64 user-agent : conda/23.11.0 requests/2.31.0 CPython/3.11.5 Windows/10 Windows/10.0.19045 solver/libmamba conda-libmamba-solver/23.11.1 libmambapy/1.5.4 administrator : False netrc file : None offline mode : False ```

conda config

```shell ==> C:\Users\username\.condarc <== channels: - conda-forge - defaults ```

conda list

```shell # packages in environment at C:\Users\username\miniconda3: # # Name Version Build Channel archspec 0.2.2 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge boltons 23.0.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge brotli-python 1.1.0 py311h12c1d0e_1 conda-forge bzip2 1.0.8 hcfcfb64_5 conda-forge ca-certificates 2023.11.17 h56e8100_0 conda-forge certifi 2023.11.17 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge cffi 1.16.0 py311ha68e1ae_0 conda-forge charset-normalizer 3.3.2 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge colorama 0.4.6 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge conda 23.11.0 py311h1ea47a8_1 conda-forge conda-content-trust 0.2.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge conda-libmamba-solver 23.11.1 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge conda-package-handling 2.2.0 pyh38be061_0 conda-forge conda-package-streaming 0.9.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge console_shortcut_miniconda 0.1.1 haa95532_1 cryptography 41.0.7 py311h7cb4080_1 conda-forge distro 1.8.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge fmt 10.1.1 h181d51b_1 conda-forge idna 3.6 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge jsonpatch 1.33 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge jsonpointer 2.4 py311h1ea47a8_3 conda-forge krb5 1.21.2 heb0366b_0 conda-forge libarchive 3.7.2 h6f8411a_0 conda-forge libcurl 8.5.0 hd5e4a3a_0 conda-forge libffi 3.4.4 hd77b12b_0 libiconv 1.17 h8ffe710_0 conda-forge libmamba 1.5.4 h3f09ed1_0 conda-forge libmambapy 1.5.4 py311h0317a69_0 conda-forge libsolv 0.7.27 h12be248_0 conda-forge libsqlite 3.44.2 hcfcfb64_0 conda-forge libssh2 1.11.0 h7dfc565_0 conda-forge libxml2 2.11.6 hc3477c8_0 conda-forge libzlib 1.2.13 hcfcfb64_5 conda-forge lz4-c 1.9.4 hcfcfb64_0 conda-forge lzo 2.10 he774522_1000 conda-forge menuinst 2.0.0 py311h12c1d0e_1 conda-forge openssl 3.2.0 hcfcfb64_1 conda-forge packaging 23.2 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge pcre2 10.42 h17e33f8_0 conda-forge pip 23.3.1 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge platformdirs 4.1.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge pluggy 1.3.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge powershell_shortcut_miniconda 0.0.1 haa95532_1 pybind11-abi 4 hd8ed1ab_3 conda-forge pycosat 0.6.6 py311ha68e1ae_0 conda-forge pycparser 2.21 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge pyopenssl 23.3.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge pysocks 1.7.1 pyh0701188_6 conda-forge python 3.11.5 he1021f5_0 python_abi 3.11 2_cp311 conda-forge reproc 14.2.4.post0 hcfcfb64_1 conda-forge reproc-cpp 14.2.4.post0 h63175ca_1 conda-forge requests 2.31.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge ruamel.yaml 0.18.5 py311ha68e1ae_0 conda-forge ruamel.yaml.clib 0.2.7 py311ha68e1ae_2 conda-forge setuptools 68.2.2 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge sqlite 3.44.2 hcfcfb64_0 conda-forge tk 8.6.13 h5226925_1 conda-forge tqdm 4.66.1 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge truststore 0.8.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge tzdata 2023c h71feb2d_0 conda-forge ucrt 10.0.22621.0 h57928b3_0 conda-forge urllib3 2.1.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge vc 14.3 h64f974e_17 conda-forge vc14_runtime 14.36.32532 hdcecf7f_17 conda-forge vs2015_runtime 14.36.32532 h05e6639_17 conda-forge wheel 0.42.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge win_inet_pton 1.1.0 pyhd8ed1ab_6 conda-forge xz 5.4.2 h8cc25b3_0 yaml-cpp 0.8.0 h63175ca_0 conda-forge zlib 1.2.13 hcfcfb64_5 conda-forge zstandard 0.22.0 py311he5d195f_0 conda-forge zstd 1.5.5 h12be248_0 conda-forge ```

[kenodegard]

What happens if you reinstall spyder conda install -n testenv --force-reinstall spyder or recreate the env?

[schtandard]

Still doesn't work. I also tried updating conda first and only then creating the environment, which gave the same result.

[jezdez]

This is probably related to menuinst 2.x being dependend on in 23.11.0. @jaimergp Please take a look at this.

[pythonic2020]

Not sure if this is related, but menuinst 2.0.0 removed the _legacy package which is called by cwp.py from miniconda.

cwp.py:

from menuinst._legacy.knownfolders import FOLDERID, get_folder_path

When menuinst 2.0.0 is installed, change the above to:

from menuinst.knownfolders import FOLDERID, get_folder_path

All shoftcuts that use cwp.py will be broken until this change is made to cwp.py.

[kenodegard]

@pythonic2020 good catch! I've opened #168 to address this issue

[jaimergp]

2.0.1 will be cut soon, addressing this issue. Thanks for the report, investigation and patience!

[JTignor-Raltron]

Has it been verified that the import error is the only cause of this issue? I was about to start a new issue with the same problem (but with shortcuts to my own packages) reporting that I think the error is related to the switch to argparse when I found this.

I have not been the best about keeping conda up to date so this presented itself to my when I went to set up a new machine with our software thus I don't know exactly when it was introduced. I created shortcuts as I have on other machines, but they didn't work. I then attempted to run the shortcut command manually on the terminal (using python instead of pythonw:python [Anaconda install location]\cwp.py [environment prefix] [environment prefix]pythonw -m [my.module]) and got this error:

usage: cwp.py [-h] [--no-console] prefix [args ...] cwp.py: error: unrecognized arguments: -m [my.module]

I know cwp.py was switched to argparse back in March of 2023 and this issue wasn't reported until December, but I don't know how long those changes would take to propagate to users to be reported and thus if I have the same issue as here or a new one. If this constitutes it's own issue, let me know and I will make one.

[jaimergp]

Yes, might be due to the change to argparse. Please open a new issue so we can investigate. Thanks!