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I have program called pdfelement installed (from Wondershare). I also have Google Cloud Sdk installed.

Today, when I ran a command from the google cloud sdk (which uses python) I noticed that path where python is executing from is somehow modified to use \wondershare\creatorTemp (which isn't where I have Python installed.

Is there anything to be concerned about?

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  • @SteffenUllrich thanks for the quick response. I'm a bit confused then about why google cloud sdk then runs with that python version (form wondershare directory) as opposed to the installed version I have on the system.
    – Rob Curtis
    Commented Oct 29, 2020 at 5:53
  • Ah, now I see what you mean. It looks like that your Wondershare installation has installed an additional Python version and set the PATH to make it the default. And the SDK is using it. In this case it might actually be a problem, so I've retracted my off-topic vote.
    – Steffen Ullrich
    Commented Oct 29, 2020 at 5:57

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The problem is not restricted to Python. Basically it boils down to the problem that some application can install programs, tools or libraries on the system which then gets used by other application.

This can have several side effects. Sometimes it is clearly breaking other applications since the new tools or libraries with the same name work differently (like Python installation with different modules installed or Python2 vs. Python3 installed). But often the errors are more subtle, like when an older library or tool with security vulnerabilities is now used instead of a newer library which is on the system too.

The problem behind this is that the program installations on a typical Windows desktop system are not clearly separated from another. With other OS like Android or iOS there is a much harder separation between the apps so that they don't affect each other that much.

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