Can't install Spacy on Windows 7 32-bit

Question

Environment: Windows 7 32-bit (SP1), Python 3.7.3, Microsoft Visual C++ 14.20.27508 (installed from Build Tools)

When I try to install spacy using (pip install -U spacy), after several minutes of message "Installing build dependencies..." I get an error "MS Visual C++ 14 is required" and the installation of Spacy is terminated.

What am I supposed to do to fix the problem? Many thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Many scientific packages for Python on Windows have problems installing through pip because most of the time, the supported compiler is not installed.

Instead of fighting with your system and figuring out what compiler you need and where to get it, I just go to Christoph Gohlke's website as he volunteers his time to build the packages properly in a Windows environment and releases the wheels that you can install for pip : https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#spacy

Choose the Python 3.7, 32-bit version, download it and install the wheel yourself. In your case, you'll need the spacy‑2.1.3‑cp37‑cp37m‑win32.whl file. Download it, and just do:

pip install spacy‑2.1.3‑cp37‑cp37m‑win32.whl