Is there a shell script to build a final distribution tree? If not, is there a simple way to build an MSI similar to the one found on the Python.org site for the official releases but using the PCBuild8 stuff?
I believe not.
It's actually not that difficult. You just have to run Tools/msi/msi.py, with a python interpreter that support PythonCOM (i.e. has PythonWin installed). Replacing all occurrences of PC[Bb]uild with PCbuild8 should do the trick. This will give you a "snapshot" MSI, i.e. one that you can install along with a regularly-release Python interpreter. If you put a config.py with testpackage=True into the msi directory, it will register the extensions .px, .pxw, .pxo, .pxc (rather than .py*), and overwrite the registry at Software\xPython (rather than Software\Python), so that the package shouldn't interfere at all with a regular installation. Regards, Martin