MS VC++ Toolkit 2003, where?

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Alex Martelli wrote:
> Can anybody suggest where to get a Framework SDK 1.1., or any other
> legal way to get "the core msvcrt.lib for msvcr71.dll against which to
> link your extensions.  This is critically important"...???

From

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9b3a2ca6-3647-4070-9f41-a333c6b9181d&displaylang=en

> I'm sure my Windows-loving
> colleagues in the PSF (who got several free copies of VS 2003 from
> Microsoft, I believe -- at the time, I had zero Windows installations
> and zero interest in Windows, so I didn't sign up for one) have fully
> considered this recurring drama, and come to the decision of sticking
> with VS 2003 (avoiding any free-as-in-beer compilers such as VS 2005 or
> mingw) with thorough and wise deliberation.

Not sure whether this mark was meant to be sarcastic: but why you don't
want to use mingw to build extensions on Windows, I cannot understand.

Regards,
Martin