Download the desired python version (do not add to path!), and remember the pathtonew_pythonexe of the newly installed version; to create a virtualenv, open command prompt and enter virtualenv pathtoenv -p pathtonew_pythonexe; if you are using pycharm, update the project interpreter and the code compatibility inspection. Virtualenv download python version. Virtualenv is a tool used to create an isolated python environment this environment has its own installation directories that doesn't share libraries with other virtualenv environments (and optionally doesn't access the globally installed libraries either).