I have the same issue as well. I tried your fix, but it doesn't seem to be working for me. Did it end up working for you?
Edit: I actually just solved my issue. It was an issue with how python was installed. I had apparently initially installed it and not checked the box that installs it with admin privileges. The fix was to uninstall Python and reinstall it using the windows installer (the recommended version from Python's website). In the installer, make sure to check both of the boxes, one having something to do with "PATH" and one mentioning "Admin".
I'm not a AAA software dev, but it seems like that block of code being removed would more-so mask the underlying issue and where it throws the error code as opposed to fixing the underlying pip issue. If anyone else gets similar errors, Chat GPT walked me through some simple commands to ensure pip is even working aside from Godot altogether. In my case, pip couldn't install or update any packages. I spent hours chasing firewall, hardware, and driver things. Apparently python is rather useless unless installed with admin privileges.
