"The basics" difficulties

[MooMooBunnyLips at gmail.com]

I'm trying to get this basic sample to work:
http://docs.python.org/ext/dnt-basics.html

When I get to the last step:
$ python setup.py build

I get this error:
error: Python was build with Visual Studio version 8.0 and
extensions need to be built with the same version of the compiler,
but it isn't installed.

This is bogus, as I do have VS8 installed.  I used it to compile
the python stuff actually.

Is there anyway to get this to work without using the distutils;
i.e. just compiling it myself?

Thank you