This chapter briefly explains how to create a Windows extension
module for Python using Microsoft Visual C++, and follows with
more detailed background information on how it works. The
explanatory material is useful for both the Windows programmer
learning to build Python extensions and the Unix programmer
interested in producing software which can be successfully built
on both Unix and Windows. Module authors are encouraged to use
the distutils approach for building extension modules, instead
of the one described in this section. You will still need the C
compiler that was used to build Python; typically Microsoft
Visual C++. This chapter mentions a number of filenames that
include an encoded Python version number. These filenames are
represented with the version number shown as XY; in practice,
'X' will be the major version number and 'Y' will be the minor
version number of the Python release you’re working with. For
example, if you are using Python 2.2.1, XY will actually be 22.
There are two approaches to