How to fully uninstall pip installed with easy_install?

Question

On Windows 7, I install pip with easy_install and want to install a lower version of pip. I want to remove the old version, but have no idea how to completely remove the pip installed by easy_install (or if there is a way to do it without going through easy_install, that is fine). How do I do this?

Solution 1

There is no completely automatic uninstall but you can do it in two steps:

easy_install -m pip

This should remove pip from easy-install.pth and print the full path to where pip is installed. Now just manually remove the path that the previous command printed. Or you could just manually edit easy-install.pth and remove the pip sources if you know where they are located.

Solution 2

I found that the following command worked.

It deleted the installed files and the .egg directory. It also provided a confirmation prompt.

pip uninstall pip

From this answer.

Solution 3

To uninstall pip in windows:

• Run command prompt as administrator
• Give the command easy_install -m pip
• This may not uninstall pip completely. So again give this command pip uninstall pip If by previous command pip got uninstalled then this command wont run, else it will completely remove pip
• Now check by giving command pip --version This should give pip is not recognized as an internal or external command

Comments

[Rolando]

What files should I delete? Where would all the easy_install pip files be located? Is it really just the pip-1.5.4-py2.7.egg file referenced in it?

[Heikki Toivonen]

Just the .egg file or folder.

[Heikki Toivonen]

Actually I realized that if the package that was installed includes user scripts, like I believe pip does, then those would still be left behind by the above. In case of pip there is probably a file called pip in the same location where easy_install is. This doesn't really matter if you install another version of pip because the other version's install will overwrite the scripts anyway.