visual studio code - Ampersand "&" syntax error running any Python script in VSCode?

Question

In VSCode, I typically run a Python Script using the Python extension and right clicking a .py script and selecting "Run Python File in Terminal". Before today this method worked fine, but now I'm experiencing the below issue...

$ & C:/Users/.../Python/Python37-32/python.exe c:/.../test.py
bash: syntax error near unexpected token `&'

Now I can't run my python scripts using this method. I can see the cause of the error, I'm just not sure why VSCode is prefixing that ampersand, and whether it was doing that before or not.

I was playing around with virtualenv, and perhaps this is the cause, but I'm experiencing this issue even when the virtual environment is not active. I've restarted VSCode and my PC, it appears to be broken.

Answer 1

Instead of downgrading, you can also change the default terminal from cmd to powershell.
To do so, go to your settings.json and replace the "terminal.integrated.shell.windows" parameter
from the path to cmd (e.g. "C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe")
to the path to powershell (e.g. "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe") If you are using VScode press ctrl+shift+p and search for default terminal and change it to powershell.