On windows, the venv module does not copy the correct python exe if the current running exe (eg sys.executable) has been renamed (eg, named python3.exe)

venv will only make copies of python.exe, pythonw.exe, python_d.exe or pythonw_d.exe.

If for example the python executable has been renamed from python.exe to python3.exe (eg, to co-exist in a system where multiple pythons are on PATH) then this can fail with errors like:

Error: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified

When venv tries to run pip in the new environment.

If the running python executable is a differently named copy then errors like the one described in https://bugs.python.org/issue40588 are seen.