You're right about there not being tests, but if there had been, they would be using the PyWin32 libraries as well and so would need to be reimplemented (if the purpose is to remove the dependency).

Perhaps ctypes would be an alternative implementation approach. Certainly the code has hardly been touched since the initial release, and I would guess that it gets used a fair amount.

I'm not sure to what extent the external dependency is a practical problem: I would guess a large number of Windows users would be using the ActiveState distribution, which includes this dependency.

Of course I'm not saying any of this as an excuse for not having tests :-)