Python distutils build problems with MinGW

[Andrej Mitrovic]

Hi,

I've made a similar post on the Cython mailing list, however I think
this is more python-specific. I'm having trouble setting up distutils
to use MinGW instead of Visual Studio when building a module. Even tho
I've just uninstalled VS, and cleared out any leftover VS environment
variables, distutils keeps wanting to use it.

The steps I took:

Fresh installation of Python 3.1.1
Successfully installed MinGW, added to the path variable (gcc in
command prompt works)
Successfully installed Cython, imports from Cython in Python work.
Added a distutils.cfg file in \Python31\Lib\distutils\ directory with:

[build]
compiler=mingw32

(also tried adding [build_ext] compiler=mingw32)

There's a demo setup.py module that came with Cython, I tried the
following commands:

----------------------------------------------------
> python setup.py build_ext --inplace

error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat

> python setup.py build

error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat
----------------------------------------------------

I'm having the exact same issue with trying to build the Polygon
library via MinGW. In fact, the reason I had installed Visual Studio
in the first place was to be able to build the Polygon library, since
I was having these errors.

What do I need to do to make distutils/python use MinGW?