Trying to compile any extension module fails with the following error:

running install
running build
running build_ext
building 'bsdiff' extension
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "setup.py", line 56, in <module>
    ext_modules = [extension])
  File "C:\hp\bin\Python\lib\distutils\core.py", line 152, in setup
    dist.run_commands()
	[Skipping many levels for brevity]
  File "C:\hp\bin\Python\lib\distutils\msvc9compiler.py", line 469, in compile
    self.initialize()
  File "C:\hp\bin\Python\lib\distutils\msvc9compiler.py", line 379, in initialize
    vc_env = query_vcvarsall(VERSION, plat_spec)
  File "C:\hp\bin\Python\lib\distutils\msvc9compiler.py", line 295, in query_vcvarsall
    raise ValueError(str(list(result.keys())))
ValueError: [u'path']

here, \hp\bin is a vista symlink to Python's directory. This is the second version that had this error, with several modules as well.

It appears to be an issue in msvc9compiler's handling of stdout, will try to patch.