spacy Can't find model 'en_core_web_sm' on windows 10 and Python 3.5.3 :: Anaconda custom (64-bit)

Question

what is difference between spacy.load('en_core_web_sm') and spacy.load('en')? This link explains different model sizes. But i am still not clear how spacy.load('en_core_web_sm') and spacy.load('en') differ

spacy.load('en') runs fine for me. But the spacy.load('en_core_web_sm') throws error

i have installed spacyas below. when i go to jupyter notebook and run command nlp = spacy.load('en_core_web_sm') I get the below error

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
OSError                                   Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-4-b472bef03043> in <module>()
      1 # Import spaCy and load the language library
      2 import spacy
----> 3 nlp = spacy.load('en_core_web_sm')
      4 
      5 # Create a Doc object

C:Users
ikhizzzAppDataLocalcondacondaenvsensorflowspyderlibsite-packagesspacy\__init__.py in load(name, **overrides)
     13     if depr_path not in (True, False, None):
     14         deprecation_warning(Warnings.W001.format(path=depr_path))
---> 15     return util.load_model(name, **overrides)
     16 
     17 

C:Users
ikhizzzAppDataLocalcondacondaenvsensorflowspyderlibsite-packagesspacyutil.py in load_model(name, **overrides)
    117     elif hasattr(name, 'exists'):  # Path or Path-like to model data
    118         return load_model_from_path(name, **overrides)
--> 119     raise IOError(Errors.E050.format(name=name))
    120 
    121 

OSError: [E050] Can't find model 'en_core_web_sm'. It doesn't seem to be a shortcut link, a Python package or a valid path to a data directory.

how I installed Spacy ---

(C:Users
ikhizzzAppDataLocalcondacondaenvsensorflowspyder) C:Users
ikhizzz>conda install -c conda-forge spacy
Fetching package metadata .............
Solving package specifications: .

Package plan for installation in environment C:Users
ikhizzzAppDataLocalcondacondaenvsensorflowspyder:

The following NEW packages will be INSTALLED:

    blas:           1.0-mkl
    cymem:          1.31.2-py35h6538335_0    conda-forge
    dill:           0.2.8.2-py35_0           conda-forge
    msgpack-numpy:  0.4.4.2-py_0             conda-forge
    murmurhash:     0.28.0-py35h6538335_1000 conda-forge
    plac:           0.9.6-py_1               conda-forge
    preshed:        1.0.0-py35h6538335_0     conda-forge
    pyreadline:     2.1-py35_1000            conda-forge
    regex:          2017.11.09-py35_0        conda-forge
    spacy:          2.0.12-py35h830ac7b_0    conda-forge
    termcolor:      1.1.0-py_2               conda-forge
    thinc:          6.10.3-py35h830ac7b_2    conda-forge
    tqdm:           4.29.1-py_0              conda-forge
    ujson:          1.35-py35hfa6e2cd_1001   conda-forge

The following packages will be UPDATED:

    msgpack-python: 0.4.8-py35_0                         --> 0.5.6-py35he980bc4_3 conda-forge

The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:

    freetype:       2.7-vc14_2               conda-forge --> 2.5.5-vc14_2

Proceed ([y]/n)? y

blas-1.0-mkl.t 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   0.00  B/s
cymem-1.31.2-p 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   1.65 MB/s
msgpack-python 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   5.37 MB/s
murmurhash-0.2 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   1.49 MB/s
plac-0.9.6-py_ 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   0.00  B/s
pyreadline-2.1 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   4.62 MB/s
regex-2017.11. 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   3.31 MB/s
termcolor-1.1. 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00 187.81 kB/s
tqdm-4.29.1-py 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   2.51 MB/s
ujson-1.35-py3 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   1.66 MB/s
dill-0.2.8.2-p 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   4.34 MB/s
msgpack-numpy- 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   0.00  B/s
preshed-1.0.0- 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   0.00  B/s
thinc-6.10.3-p 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:00   5.49 MB/s
spacy-2.0.12-p 100% |###############################| Time: 0:00:10   7.42 MB/s

(C:Users
ikhizzzAppDataLocalcondacondaenvsensorflowspyder) C:Users
ikhizzz>python -V
Python 3.5.3 :: Anaconda custom (64-bit)

(C:Users
ikhizzzAppDataLocalcondacondaenvsensorflowspyder) C:Users
ikhizzz>python -m spacy download en
Collecting en_core_web_sm==2.0.0 from https://github.com/explosion/spacy-models/releases/download/en_core_web_sm-2.0.0/en_core_web_sm-2.0.0.tar.gz#egg=en_core_web_sm==2.0.0
  Downloading https://github.com/explosion/spacy-models/releases/download/en_core_web_sm-2.0.0/en_core_web_sm-2.0.0.tar.gz (37.4MB)
    100% |################################| 37.4MB ...
Installing collected packages: en-core-web-sm
  Running setup.py install for en-core-web-sm ... done
Successfully installed en-core-web-sm-2.0.0

    Linking successful
    C:Users
ikhizzzAppDataLocalcondacondaenvsensorflowspyderlibsite-packagesen_core_web_sm
    -->
    C:Users
ikhizzzAppDataLocalcondacondaenvsensorflowspyderlibsite-packagesspacydataen

    You can now load the model via spacy.load('en')


(C:Users
ikhizzzAppDataLocalcondacondaenvsensorflowspyder) C:Users
ikhizzz>

Answer 1

Initially I downloaded two en packages using following statements in anaconda prompt.

python -m spacy download en_core_web_lg
python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm

But, I kept on getting linkage error and finally running below command helped me to establish link and solved error.

python -m spacy download en

Also make sure you to restart your runtime if working with Jupyter.