> However, if the patch doesn't manage to make "configure;make" work, it's IMO useless.
No, it's not, for two reasons:
- Embedding Python by just compiling/linking all the .c files in seems to be a major feature to me; so fixing compilation is useful for its own
- The win32 build system has never used "configure;make", but a Visual Studio project file; so why require it for a MinGW build?!

> Having "make install" work in some form would be desirable.
It would be a "nice to have". But there is one thing: The patch in its current form is trivial and next to impossible to break anything, yet I'm sure it's useful for a number of people. It's a result of work done within the company I'm working for. Submitting the patch does not have an immediate benefit for my company, it only will save me a (short!) amount of time because I will not to have to re-apply the patch for every new Python release. This time saving is the only justification for spending some working time to try to get it into the official tree.

As I have the feeling that all the discussion (which for the major part I used my spare time already...) is taking too much time, I will stop doing it as part of my job. As I'm privately interested in open source projects, I will continue to have a look at fixing "configure;make" for MinGW; but given my very limited spare time, this might take some weeks...