diff --git a/tests/test_basic_load.py b/tests/test_basic_load.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..74e3e1ec7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_basic_load.py
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+"""Some quick tests that don't depend on data files or on pytest, for debugging the
+MS windows build issues."""
+from __future__ import print_function, unicode_literals
+
+import unittest
+import re
+from os import path
+
+from spacy.lemmatizer import Lemmatizer
+from spacy.morphology import Morphology
+from spacy.strings import StringStore
+from spacy.vocab import Vocab
+from spacy.tokenizer import Tokenizer
+from spacy.syntax.arc_eager import ArcEager
+from spacy._ml import Model
+from spacy.tagger import Tagger
+from spacy.syntax.parser import Parser
+from spacy.matcher import Matcher
+
+from spacy.en import English
+
+
+class TestLoadVocab(unittest.TestCase):
+    def test_load(self):
+        vocab = Vocab.from_dir(path.join(English.default_data_dir(), 'vocab'))
+
+
+class TestLoadTokenizer(unittest.TestCase):
+    def test_load(self):
+        data_dir = English.default_data_dir()
+        vocab = Vocab.from_dir(path.join(data_dir, 'vocab'))
+        tokenizer = Tokenizer.from_dir(vocab, path.join(data_dir, 'tokenizer'))
+
+
+class TestLoadTagger(unittest.TestCase):
+    def test_load(self):
+        data_dir = English.default_data_dir()
+        vocab = Vocab.from_dir(path.join(data_dir, 'vocab'))
+        tagger = Tagger.from_dir(path.join(data_dir, 'tagger'), vocab)
+
+
+class TestLoadParser(unittest.TestCase):
+    def test_load(self):
+        data_dir = English.default_data_dir()
+        vocab = Vocab.from_dir(path.join(data_dir, 'vocab'))
+        parser = Parser.from_dir(path.join(data_dir, 'deps'), vocab.strings, ArcEager)
+
+
+if __name__ == '__main__':
+    unittest.main()