Unofficial Python Installers for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2

Officially, Python 3.9 and above are not supported on Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Here, you can obtain unofficial Windows installers that bring back support for these older Windows versions.

Note: Windows update KB2533623 must be installed for Python to run. Ensure that your computer is up-to-date via Windows Update. Alternatively, you can manually install update KB3063858, which supersedes KB2533623. Update KB3063858 can be obtained at the following link for 32-bit Windows or 64-bit Windows.

For each Python version, this repository includes the following.

• 64-bit executable installer (e.g. python-3.9.0-amd64-full.exe)
• 32-bit executable installer (e.g. python-3.9.0-full.exe)
• 64-bit embeddable zip file (e.g. python-3.9.0-embed-amd64.zip)
• 32-bit embeddable zip file (e.g. python-3.9.0-embed-win32.zip)
• 64-bit NuGet package (e.g. python.3.9.0.nupkg)
• 32-bit NuGet package (e.g. pythonx86.3.9.0.nupkg)
• Windows help file (e.g. python390.chm) (3.9 and 3.10 only)

For the more technical among you, these installers were built from the source distributions published at https://www.python.org/downloads/source/, with the following modifications.

• Include the file api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll in the distribution. This file was obtained from https://github.com/nalexandru/api-ms-win-core-path-HACK and is necessary for Python to run on older Windows versions.
• Create full installers that include debugging symbols and debug binaries without needing to download them.
• Allow the installer to proceed on Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
• For Python 3.11 or higher, remove the usage of features that are not available on Windows 7.
• Fix a few bugs in the build scripts.

See Notes.md for more specific details about how I built these installers and how you may build them yourself.

NuGet Packages

To install a .nupkg package, ensure that you have the NuGet Command-Line Interface installed. Go to the directory containing the .nupkg file. Replace target\installation\directory in the following commands with the desired location to install the package.

Command Prompt

For 64-bit Python, run nuget install python -Source %cd% -OutputDirectory target\installation\directory

For 32-bit Python, run nuget install pythonx86 -Source %cd% -OutputDirectory target\installation\directory

PowerShell

For 64-bit Python, run nuget install python -Source $(Get-Location) -OutputDirectory target\installation\directory

For 32-bit Python, run nuget install pythonx86 -Source $(Get-Location) -OutputDirectory target\installation\directory

Git History

In an effort to keep the size of this repository low, the Git history will not be kept. All updates will be made via force-pushes. If you fork this repository and wish to update your fork, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9646167/clean-up-a-fork-and-restart-it-from-the-upstream.

License

These files are provided under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt.

Who am I

I am Aohan Dang (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aohan-dang-536643a7/), a professional software developer and Python enthusiast.