This is due to the way Windows **App Execution Aliases** work in Git-Bash.  

It is a known issue in **MSYS2** [failing to access Windows reparse points with `IO_REPARSE_TAG_APPEXECLINK`][3]

*As a workaround*, you can alias to a function invocation that uses `cmd.exe` under the hood.  

Add the following to your `~/.bashrc` file::

```bash
function python { cmd.exe /c "python $1 $2 $3";}
```

For python, I'd recommend just toggling off app execution aliases as in the accepted answer, but for libraries that are distributed exclusively through the windows store like `winget`, this is your best option.


## Further Reading

* [bash: Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps/python3: Permission denied][1]
* [Permission Denied when running from bash][2]
* [winget does not run in WSL2 due to exec format error #234][4]

[1]: https://github.com/gmacario/spaceappschallenge-2019/issues/6
[2]: https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/issues/228
[3]: https://github.com/msys2/Msys2-packages/issues/1943
[4]: https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/issues/234#issuecomment-647641718

Seems as though an update on Windows 10 overnight broke Python. Just trying to run `python --version` returned a "Permission Denied" error.  None of the three updates; KB4507453, KB4506991, or KB4509096 look like they'd be the culprit but the timing of the issue is suspicious. Rather than messing with rolling back, I'm hoping there's a simpler fix that I'm missing.

The permissions on python are "-rwxr-xr-x" and I haven't changed anything besides letting the Windows update reboot machine after installing last night's patches.

According to the System Information, I'm running 10.0.18362

Should also note that this is happening whether I (try) to execute Python from git-bash using "run as administrator" or not, and if I try using PowerShell, it just opens the Windows store as if the app isn't installed so I'm thinking it can't see the contents of my `/c/Users/david/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps/` folder for some reason.

I've also tried to reinstall Python 3.7.4, but that didn't help either. Is there something else I should be looking at?