diff -r 2ecdda96f970 Lib/sysconfig.py
--- a/Lib/sysconfig.py	Tue Jul 10 18:27:54 2012 +0200
+++ b/Lib/sysconfig.py	Tue Jul 10 22:06:43 2012 +0200
@@ -390,7 +390,7 @@
     if _PYTHON_BUILD:
         vars['LDSHARED'] = vars['BLDSHARED']
 
-    destfile = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), '_sysconfigdata.py')
+    destfile = '_sysconfigdata.py'
     with open(destfile, 'w', encoding='utf8') as f:
         f.write('# system configuration generated and used by'
                 ' the sysconfig module\n')
diff -r 2ecdda96f970 Makefile.pre.in
--- a/Makefile.pre.in	Tue Jul 10 18:27:54 2012 +0200
+++ b/Makefile.pre.in	Tue Jul 10 22:06:43 2012 +0200
@@ -410,7 +410,7 @@
 		Objects/unicodectype.o \
 		Objects/weakrefobject.o
 
-SYSCONFIGDATA=$(srcdir)/Lib/_sysconfigdata.py
+SYSCONFIGDATA=_sysconfigdata.py
 
 ##########################################################################
 # objects that get linked into the Python library
@@ -472,6 +472,9 @@
 # Generate the sysconfig build-time data
 $(SYSCONFIGDATA): $(BUILDPYTHON)
 	$(RUNSHARED) $(PYTHON_FOR_BUILD) -S -m sysconfig --generate-posix-vars
+	$(RUNSHARED) $(PYTHON_FOR_BUILD) -S -c 'import os,sys ; from distutils.util import get_platform ; d=os.path.join("build", "lib."+get_platform()+"-"+sys.version[0:3]); print(d, end="")' > pybuilddir.txt
+	mkdir -p `cat pybuilddir.txt`
+	cp $(SYSCONFIGDATA) `cat pybuilddir.txt`/.
 
 # Build the shared modules
 sharedmods: $(BUILDPYTHON) $(SYSCONFIGDATA)
@@ -1036,7 +1039,7 @@
 		else	true; \
 		fi; \
 	done
-	@for i in $(srcdir)/Lib/*.py ; \
+	@for i in $(srcdir)/Lib/*.py $(SYSCONFIGDATA); \
 	do \
 		if test -x $$i; then \
 			$(INSTALL_SCRIPT) $$i $(DESTDIR)$(LIBDEST); \
diff -r 2ecdda96f970 setup.py
--- a/setup.py	Tue Jul 10 18:27:54 2012 +0200
+++ b/setup.py	Tue Jul 10 22:06:43 2012 +0200
@@ -33,10 +33,6 @@
 # This global variable is used to hold the list of modules to be disabled.
 disabled_module_list = []
 
-# File which contains the directory for shared mods (for sys.path fixup
-# when running from the build dir, see Modules/getpath.c)
-_BUILDDIR_COOKIE = "pybuilddir.txt"
-
 def add_dir_to_list(dirlist, dir):
     """Add the directory 'dir' to the list 'dirlist' (after any relative
     directories) if:
@@ -250,12 +246,9 @@
             args['compiler_so'] = compiler + ' ' + ccshared + ' ' + cflags
         self.compiler.set_executables(**args)
 
-        # Not only do we write the builddir cookie, but we manually install
-        # the shared modules directory if it isn't already in sys.path.
-        # Otherwise trying to import the extensions after building them
-        # will fail.
-        with open(_BUILDDIR_COOKIE, "wb") as f:
-            f.write(self.build_lib.encode('utf-8', 'surrogateescape'))
+        # We manually install the shared modules directory if it isn't
+        # already in sys.path.  Otherwise trying to import the
+        # extensions after building them will fail.
         abs_build_lib = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), self.build_lib)
         if abs_build_lib not in sys.path:
             sys.path.append(abs_build_lib)