Oh, BTW, you were missing the VC part of the path in your test.  But if
I run the same code with that corrected on my Win7 box, I get:

>>> from distutils.msvc9compiler import Reg
>>> path = r'Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0'
>>> Reg.get_value(path, u"fullscreen")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "D:\python\2.6\lib\distutils\msvc9compiler.py", line 62, in get_value
    raise KeyError(key)
KeyError: u'fullscreen'
>>> path = r'Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\VC'
>>> Reg.get_value(path, u"build timing")
0

I get the same results on my XP+VS 2008 box but also on my XP + VC
Express box.  (E.g., "fullscreen" doesn't work on any of them)