diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yml b/.github/workflows/linux_ci.yml
similarity index 90%
rename from .github/workflows/ci.yml
rename to .github/workflows/linux_ci.yml
index 7f2cba977..4d78e9051 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/linux_ci.yml
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-name: Build
+name: Linux CI
 
 on:
   push:
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ jobs:
         uses: actions/cache@v2
         with:
           path: ${{ env.pythonLocation }}
-          key: ${{ env.pythonLocation }}-${{ env.date }}-${{ hashFiles('setup.py') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements.txt') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements-dev.txt') }}
+          key: linux-${{ env.pythonLocation }}-${{ env.date }}-${{ hashFiles('setup.py') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements.txt') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements-dev.txt') }}
       - name: Install dependencies
         if: steps.cache-python-env.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
         run: |
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ jobs:
       uses: actions/cache@v2
       with:
         path: ${{ env.pythonLocation }}
-        key: ${{ env.pythonLocation }}-${{ env.date }}-${{ hashFiles('setup.py') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements.txt') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements-dev.txt') }}
+        key: linux-${{ env.pythonLocation }}-${{ env.date }}-${{ hashFiles('setup.py') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements.txt') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements-dev.txt') }}
     - name: Run Elasticsearch
       run: docker run -d -p 9200:9200 -e "discovery.type=single-node" -e "ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms128m -Xmx128m" elasticsearch:7.9.2
 
diff --git a/.github/workflows/windows_ci.yml b/.github/workflows/windows_ci.yml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..aec550632
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/windows_ci.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+name: Windows CI
+
+on:
+  push:
+    branches: [ master ]
+#  pull_request:
+#    branches: [ master ]
+
+jobs:
+  type-check:
+    runs-on: windows-latest
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
+      - uses: actions/setup-python@v2
+        with:
+          python-version: 3.8
+      - name: Test with mypy
+        run: |
+          pip install mypy types-Markdown types-requests types-PyYAML pydantic
+          mypy haystack
+
+  build-cache:
+    needs: type-check
+    runs-on: windows-latest
+
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
+      - uses: actions/setup-python@v2
+        with:
+          python-version: 3.7
+      - run: echo "date=$(date +'%Y-%m-%d')" >> $env:GITHUB_ENV
+      - name: Cache
+        id: cache-python-env
+        uses: actions/cache@v2
+        with:
+          path: ${{ env.pythonLocation }}
+          key: windows-${{ env.pythonLocation }}-${{ env.date }}-${{ hashFiles('setup.py') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements.txt') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements-dev.txt') }}
+      - name: Install Pytorch on windows
+        run: |
+          pip install torch==1.8.1+cpu -f https://download.pytorch.org/whl/lts/1.8/torch_lts.html
+      - name: Install dependencies
+        if: steps.cache-python-env.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
+        run: |
+          python -m pip install --upgrade pip
+          pip install --upgrade --upgrade-strategy eager -r requirements-dev.txt -e .
+          pip install --upgrade --upgrade-strategy eager -f https://download.pytorch.org/whl/torch_stable.html -r requirements.txt -e .
+          pip install torch-scatter -f https://data.pyg.org/whl/torch-1.9.0+cpu.html
+
+  prepare-build:
+    needs: build-cache
+    # With Windows it gives error, also this step only listing test files only
+    runs-on: ubuntu-20.04
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
+      - id: set-matrix
+        run: |
+          echo "::set-output name=matrix::$(cd test && ls -d test_*.py | jq -R . | jq -cs .)"
+    outputs:
+      matrix: ${{ steps.set-matrix.outputs.matrix }}
+
+  build:
+    needs: prepare-build
+    runs-on: windows-latest
+    strategy:
+      matrix:
+        test-path: ${{fromJson(needs.prepare-build.outputs.matrix)}}
+      fail-fast: false
+    steps:
+    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
+    - name: Set up Python 3.7
+      uses: actions/setup-python@v2
+      with:
+        python-version: 3.7
+    - run: echo "date=$(date +'%Y-%m-%d')" >> $env:GITHUB_ENV
+    - name: Cache
+      uses: actions/cache@v2
+      with:
+        path: ${{ env.pythonLocation }}
+        key: windows-${{ env.pythonLocation }}-${{ env.date }}-${{ hashFiles('setup.py') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements.txt') }}-${{ hashFiles('requirements-dev.txt') }}
+
+    # Windows runner can't run Linux containers. Refer https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments/issues/1143
+    - name: Set up Windows test env
+      run: |
+        choco install xpdf-utils
+        choco install openjdk11
+        refreshenv
+        choco install tesseract --pre
+        choco install elasticsearch --version=7.9.2
+        refreshenv
+        Get-Service elasticsearch-service-x64 | Start-Service
+
+    # We have to remove files if not test going to run from it
+    # As on windows we are going to disable quite a few tests these, hence these files will throw error refer https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/issues/812
+    # Removing test_ray, test_utils, test_preprocessor, test_knowledge_graph and test_connector
+    - name: Run tests
+      if: ${{ !contains(fromJSON('["test_ray.py", "test_knowledge_graph.py", "test_connector.py"]'), matrix.test-path) }}
+      run: cd test && pytest --document_store_type=memory,faiss,elasticsearch -m "not tika and not graphdb" -s ${{ matrix.test-path }}
diff --git a/haystack/utils/preprocessing.py b/haystack/utils/preprocessing.py
index cce32aa2f..4f8a3305e 100644
--- a/haystack/utils/preprocessing.py
+++ b/haystack/utils/preprocessing.py
@@ -8,7 +8,6 @@ from haystack.nodes.file_converter import (
     BaseConverter, 
     DocxToTextConverter,
     PDFToTextConverter,
-    TikaConverter,
     TextConverter
 )
 
@@ -99,6 +98,11 @@ def tika_convert_files_to_dicts(
     :param clean_func: a custom cleaning function that gets applied to each doc (input: str, output:str)
     :param split_paragraphs: split text in paragraphs.
     """
+    try:
+        from haystack.nodes.file_converter import TikaConverter
+    except Exception as ex:
+        logger.error("Tika not installed. Please install tika and try again. Error: {}".format(ex))
+        raise ex
     converter = TikaConverter()
     paths = [p for p in Path(dir_path).glob("**/*")]
     allowed_suffixes = [".pdf", ".txt"]
diff --git a/test/conftest.py b/test/conftest.py
index 53070e37c..a10705cf0 100644
--- a/test/conftest.py
+++ b/test/conftest.py
@@ -224,7 +224,7 @@ def tika_fixture():
 
 
 @pytest.fixture(scope="session")
-def xpdf_fixture(tika_fixture):
+def xpdf_fixture():
     verify_installation = run(["pdftotext"], shell=True)
     if verify_installation.returncode == 127:
         if platform.startswith("linux"):
diff --git a/test/test_document_store.py b/test/test_document_store.py
index e30dd6519..7d6152416 100644
--- a/test/test_document_store.py
+++ b/test/test_document_store.py
@@ -68,6 +68,7 @@ def test_write_with_duplicate_doc_ids_custom_index(document_store):
     # writing to the default, empty index should still work
     document_store.write_documents(documents, duplicate_documents="fail")
 
+
 def test_get_all_documents_without_filters(document_store_with_docs):
     documents = document_store_with_docs.get_all_documents()
     assert all(isinstance(d, Document) for d in documents)
@@ -812,7 +813,7 @@ def test_get_meta_values_by_key(document_store):
 
 
 @pytest.mark.elasticsearch
-def test_elasticsearch_custom_fields(elasticsearch_fixture):
+def test_elasticsearch_custom_fields():
     client = Elasticsearch()
     client.indices.delete(index='haystack_test_custom', ignore=[404])
     document_store = ElasticsearchDocumentStore(index="haystack_test_custom", content_field="custom_text_field",
diff --git a/test/test_faiss_and_milvus.py b/test/test_faiss_and_milvus.py
index 811c429d4..3b75deaff 100644
--- a/test/test_faiss_and_milvus.py
+++ b/test/test_faiss_and_milvus.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-import time
+import sys
+
 import faiss
 import math
 import numpy as np
@@ -19,6 +20,7 @@ DOCUMENTS = [
 ]
 
 
+@pytest.mark.skipif(sys.platform in ['win32', 'cygwin'], reason="Test with tmp_path not working on windows runner")
 def test_faiss_index_save_and_load(tmp_path):
     document_store = FAISSDocumentStore(
         sql_url=f"sqlite:////{tmp_path/'haystack_test.db'}",
@@ -47,6 +49,7 @@ def test_faiss_index_save_and_load(tmp_path):
     assert not new_document_store.progress_bar
 
 
+@pytest.mark.skipif(sys.platform in ['win32', 'cygwin'], reason="Test with tmp_path not working on windows runner")
 def test_faiss_index_save_and_load_custom_path(tmp_path):
     document_store = FAISSDocumentStore(
         sql_url=f"sqlite:////{tmp_path/'haystack_test.db'}",
@@ -95,7 +98,7 @@ def test_faiss_write_docs(document_store, index_buffer_size, batch_size):
         stored_emb = document_store.faiss_indexes[document_store.index].reconstruct(int(doc.meta["vector_id"]))
         # compare original input vec with stored one (ignore extra dim added by hnsw)
         assert np.allclose(original_doc["embedding"], stored_emb, rtol=0.01)
-        
+
 
 @pytest.mark.slow
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("retriever", ["dpr"], indirect=True)
@@ -158,6 +161,7 @@ def test_update_with_empty_store(document_store, retriever):
     assert len(documents_indexed) == len(DOCUMENTS)
 
 
+@pytest.mark.skipif(sys.platform in ['win32', 'cygwin'], reason="Test with tmp_path not working on windows runner")
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("index_factory", ["Flat", "HNSW", "IVF1,Flat"])
 def test_faiss_retrieving(index_factory, tmp_path):
     document_store = FAISSDocumentStore(
@@ -253,7 +257,7 @@ def test_delete_docs_by_id_with_filters(document_store, retriever):
     all_ids_left = [doc.id for doc in documents]
     assert all(doc_id in all_ids_left for doc_id in ids_not_to_delete)
 
- 
+
 
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("retriever", ["embedding"], indirect=True)
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("document_store", ["faiss", "milvus"], indirect=True)
@@ -271,6 +275,7 @@ def test_pipeline(document_store, retriever):
     assert len(output["documents"]) == 3
 
 
+@pytest.mark.skipif(sys.platform in ['win32', 'cygwin'], reason="Test with tmp_path not working on windows runner")
 def test_faiss_passing_index_from_outside(tmp_path):
     d = 768
     nlist = 2
@@ -295,6 +300,7 @@ def test_faiss_passing_index_from_outside(tmp_path):
         assert 0 <= int(doc.meta["vector_id"]) <= 7
 
 
+@pytest.mark.skipif(sys.platform in ['win32', 'cygwin'], reason="Test with tmp_path not working on windows runner")
 def test_faiss_cosine_similarity(tmp_path):
     document_store = FAISSDocumentStore(
         sql_url=f"sqlite:////{tmp_path/'haystack_test_faiss.db'}", similarity='cosine'
@@ -322,7 +328,7 @@ def test_faiss_cosine_similarity(tmp_path):
 
         # check if the stored embedding was normalized
         assert np.allclose(original_emb[0], result_emb, rtol=0.01)
-        
+
         # check if the score is plausible for cosine similarity
         assert 0 <= doc.score <= 1.0
 
@@ -342,7 +348,7 @@ def test_faiss_cosine_similarity(tmp_path):
         assert not np.allclose(original_emb[0], doc.embedding, rtol=0.01)
 
 
-
+@pytest.mark.skipif(sys.platform in ['win32', 'cygwin'], reason="Test with tmp_path not working on windows runner")
 def test_faiss_cosine_sanity_check(tmp_path):
     document_store = FAISSDocumentStore(
         sql_url=f"sqlite:////{tmp_path/'haystack_test_faiss.db'}", similarity='cosine',
diff --git a/test/test_file_converter.py b/test/test_file_converter.py
index f163c489b..79c9a7964 100644
--- a/test/test_file_converter.py
+++ b/test/test_file_converter.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ from haystack.file_converter.tika import TikaConverter
     # "Converter", [PDFToTextConverter, TikaConverter, PDFToTextOCRConverter]
     "Converter", [PDFToTextOCRConverter]
 )
-def test_convert(Converter, xpdf_fixture):
+def test_convert(Converter):
     converter = Converter()
     document = converter.convert(file_path=Path("samples/pdf/sample_pdf_1.pdf"))
     pages = document["content"].split("\f")
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ def test_convert(Converter, xpdf_fixture):
 
 @pytest.mark.tika
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("Converter", [PDFToTextConverter, TikaConverter])
-def test_table_removal(Converter, xpdf_fixture):
+def test_table_removal(Converter):
     converter = Converter(remove_numeric_tables=True)
     document = converter.convert(file_path=Path("samples/pdf/sample_pdf_1.pdf"))
     pages = document["content"].split("\f")
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ def test_table_removal(Converter, xpdf_fixture):
 
 @pytest.mark.tika
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("Converter", [PDFToTextConverter, TikaConverter])
-def test_language_validation(Converter, xpdf_fixture, caplog):
+def test_language_validation(Converter, caplog):
     converter = Converter(valid_languages=["en"])
     converter.convert(file_path=Path("samples/pdf/sample_pdf_1.pdf"))
     assert (
diff --git a/test/test_generator.py b/test/test_generator.py
index e98470a75..8b44d7681 100644
--- a/test/test_generator.py
+++ b/test/test_generator.py
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+import sys
 from typing import List
 
 import numpy as np
@@ -428,6 +429,7 @@ def test_generator_pipeline(document_store, retriever, rag_generator):
     assert "berlin" in answers[0]["answer"]
 
 
+@pytest.mark.skipif(sys.platform in ['win32', 'cygwin'], reason="Gives memory allocation error on windows runner")
 @pytest.mark.slow
 @pytest.mark.generator
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("document_store", ["memory"], indirect=True)
diff --git a/test/test_knowledge_graph.py b/test/test_knowledge_graph.py
index b21dc5c73..5f3ca1007 100644
--- a/test/test_knowledge_graph.py
+++ b/test/test_knowledge_graph.py
@@ -6,8 +6,9 @@ from haystack.nodes import Text2SparqlRetriever
 from haystack.document_stores import GraphDBKnowledgeGraph
 from haystack.utils import fetch_archive_from_http
 
+
 @pytest.mark.graphdb
-def test_graph_retrieval(graphdb_fixture):
+def test_graph_retrieval():
     # TODO rename doc_dir
     graph_dir = "../data/tutorial10_knowledge_graph/"
     s3_url = "https://fandom-qa.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/triples_and_config.zip"
diff --git a/test/test_preprocessor.py b/test/test_preprocessor.py
index 64b6eb361..b51f9b258 100644
--- a/test/test_preprocessor.py
+++ b/test/test_preprocessor.py
@@ -18,7 +18,6 @@ in the sentence.
 """
 
 
-@pytest.mark.tika
 def test_preprocess_sentence_split():
     document = {"content": TEXT}
     preprocessor = PreProcessor(split_length=1, split_overlap=0, split_by="sentence", split_respect_sentence_boundary=False)
@@ -32,7 +31,6 @@ def test_preprocess_sentence_split():
     assert len(documents) == 2
 
 
-@pytest.mark.tika
 def test_preprocess_word_split():
     document = {"content": TEXT}
     preprocessor = PreProcessor(split_length=10, split_overlap=0, split_by="word", split_respect_sentence_boundary=False)
@@ -56,7 +54,6 @@ def test_preprocess_word_split():
     assert len(documents) == 15
 
 
-@pytest.mark.tika
 def test_preprocess_passage_split():
     document = {"content": TEXT}
     preprocessor = PreProcessor(split_length=1, split_overlap=0, split_by="passage", split_respect_sentence_boundary=False)
@@ -68,7 +65,6 @@ def test_preprocess_passage_split():
     assert len(documents) == 2
 
 
-@pytest.mark.tika
 def test_clean_header_footer():
     converter = PDFToTextConverter()
     document = converter.convert(file_path=Path("samples/pdf/sample_pdf_2.pdf"))  # file contains header/footer
diff --git a/test/test_retriever.py b/test/test_retriever.py
index 7ecce05a6..da99e8a1f 100644
--- a/test/test_retriever.py
+++ b/test/test_retriever.py
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ def test_retrieval(retriever_with_docs, document_store_with_docs):
 
 
 @pytest.mark.elasticsearch
-def test_elasticsearch_custom_query(elasticsearch_fixture):
+def test_elasticsearch_custom_query():
     client = Elasticsearch()
     client.indices.delete(index="haystack_test_custom", ignore=[404])
     document_store = ElasticsearchDocumentStore(
diff --git a/test/test_utils.py b/test/test_utils.py
index f4ad36860..7320437a8 100644
--- a/test/test_utils.py
+++ b/test/test_utils.py
@@ -1,17 +1,16 @@
 import pytest
 
-from haystack.preprocessor.utils import convert_files_to_dicts, tika_convert_files_to_dicts
-from haystack.preprocessor.cleaning import clean_wiki_text
+from haystack.utils.preprocessing import convert_files_to_dicts, tika_convert_files_to_dicts
+from haystack.utils.cleaning import clean_wiki_text
 
 
-@pytest.mark.tika
-def test_convert_files_to_dicts(xpdf_fixture):
+def test_convert_files_to_dicts():
     documents = convert_files_to_dicts(dir_path="samples", clean_func=clean_wiki_text, split_paragraphs=True)
     assert documents and len(documents) > 0
 
 
 @pytest.mark.tika
-def test_tika_convert_files_to_dicts(tika_fixture):
+def test_tika_convert_files_to_dicts():
     documents = tika_convert_files_to_dicts(dir_path="samples", clean_func=clean_wiki_text, split_paragraphs=True)
     assert documents and len(documents) > 0