msvc9compiler should not look for any versions of MSVC other than 9.0, since extensions built using other versions will be subtly (or dramatically) incompatible with Python unless you also rebuild Python itself with the same MSVC version.

You can set DISTUTILS_USE_SDK=1 and run from the VS 2012 Developer Command Prompt (or otherwise configure your environment) if you are willing to accept the risk, but ensure you test the built extension thoroughly.

Hopefully, 3.5 will switch to the next version of MSVC (14) and will be able to detect and use all later releases, so this particular problem won't exist in the future. There's nothing we can/will do for 2.x at this stage.