Python.exe cannot run for missing  api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1.0.dll ,

api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll is for only Windows 8?

https://github.com/microsoft/CNTK/issues/224

Sorry, Windows 7 is no longer supported in Python 3.9. You'll need to update, ideally to Windows 10, but if you want to stay on Windows 8.1 then I believe that one's supported until Python 3.10.

Can we get this mentioned somewhere? Eg, https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-390b3/ doesn't mention anything about minimum versions. https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/ also has prominent notices like "Note that Python 3.8.3rc1 cannot be used on Windows XP or earlier." but nothing for 3.9

(This threw me for some time - I still have a win7 VM I used for testing and figured there was something broken in the VM before finding this)

Łukasz can add a note to the release page, I believe.

At beta 5 the download page [0] says nothing about dropping win7 support.

The  installer, at least the one I tried ( python-3.9.0b5-amd64.exe ) will install on win7, and without warnings.

It would be much better if it refused to install.

opps, 

[0] https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-390b5/

also, no mention in

https://pythondev.readthedocs.io/platforms.html

https://docs.python.org/3.9/using/windows.html should probably be updated:

"""
As specified in PEP 11, a Python release only supports a Windows platform while Microsoft considers the platform under extended support. This means that Python 3.9 supports Windows Vista and newer. If you require Windows XP support then please install Python 3.4.
"""

Technically, the link to PEP 11 is sufficient, but "Python 3.9 supports Windows Vista and newer" is inaccurate.

If someone wanted to submit a PR, I'm sure it would be welcome.

Is the missed api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1.0.dll library the only reason of the Python 3.9 and 3.10 incompatibility with Windows 7? I am asking because I just found replacement of this dll, compatible with Windows 7: https://github.com/nalexandru/api-ms-win-core-path-HACK, which allows to use Blender (with embedded Python 3.9) in Windows 7 environment.

Then I copied installation of Python 3.10 64-bit from Windows 10 to Windows 7, mentioned above DLL to the root sub-directory of Python 3.10 and was able to run Python. 

So my question is: is it possible to modify just a  Windows installer to allow installation to Windows 7? With warning, additional question, etc.?

Thank you in advance.

---
Andrew

Well, we don't support doing that - so I'm not sure what you want beyond the statement "it's not supported". If it works for you, then by all means use it, but you'll be on your own for any issues you encounter unless you can reproduce them in a "normal" supported installation.

And I assume it goes without saying, don't do this in a production environment :-)