Prevent Visual Studio Code from activating the Python virtual environment

If you open the vscode terminal first and then select python interpreter, then it won't activate the python environment. This answer works in vscode 1.44.0 with pyhton 3.8.1. I haven't tested with other versions. However, if you have any files or workspace open you need to close that first to close the python interpreter. You don't need to make any changes in settings.

Add "python.terminal.activateEnvironment": false to your settings (globally to your user settings if you never want it, otherwise your settings.json file which is found in .vscode directory; this folder is found in your workspace directory if this is a per-workspace thing for you; docs).