Fails on Windows with exit code 3221225477

[chrissimpkins]

A new Windows runner regression popped up recently.

C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\Python\3.10.2\x64\Scripts\flake8.exe --version
Error: The process 'C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\Python\3.10.2\x64\Scripts\flake8.exe' failed with exit code 3221225477

Possibly related?:

• exec.exec fails to execute python executables in windows runners actions/toolkit#992
• setup-python failing due to missing cache directory actions/setup-python#328
• pip3 install fails on Windows with exit code 3221225477 actions/runner-images#5027

I need to explore the issue trackers in more detail to understand how we should address it.

[chrissimpkins]

Based on actions/toolkit#992 (comment), it sounds like we should use the following to install Python packages in Win runner env's to address the issue:

python -m pip install [package]

which we do here. This isn't the answer. Looking for another solution.

[chrissimpkins]

Reverting the GitHub Actions Windows runner environment pip version in 465c8cf addresses this issue and is the current workaround. This appears to be a pip bug.

h/t pypa/pip#10875 (comment)

[chrissimpkins]

This bug may have been addressed in pip release https://github.com/pypa/pip/releases/tag/22.0.4