I tested this by building the installer locally on my Windows PC. There is a python3t.lib file in an install that doesn't include the free-threaded build. I can also confirm that the venv bug is fixed as well!

@hugovk can I fire a buildbot run for this PR?

@ngoldbaum Go ahead, no need to ask. I'm always happier to see buildbot failures addressed before merge :)

Do you know how to trigger? Either apply the label for the full set, or leave a regex comment for a subset:

https://devguide.python.org/testing/buildbots/#triggering-on-pull-requests

!buildbot .Windows.

🤖 New build scheduled with the buildbot fleet by @ngoldbaum for commit cc031de 🤖

Results will be shown at:

https://buildbot.python.org/all/#/grid?branch=refs%2Fpull%2F149900%2Fmerge

The command will test the builders whose names match following regular expression: .*Windows.*

The builders matched are:

• AMD64 Windows11 Non-Debug PR
• AMD64 Windows PGO Tailcall PR
• AMD64 Windows Server 2022 NoGIL PR
• AMD64 Windows PGO NoGIL Tailcall PR
• ARM64 Windows PR
• AMD64 Windows11 Refleaks PR
• AMD64 Windows PGO NoGIL PR
• AMD64 Windows PGO PR
• AMD64 Windows10 PR
• ARM64 Windows Non-Debug PR

Unfortunately the buildbot runs are not actually useful here; the buildbots don't build the MSI :)

I think the only weirdness we're likely to see here is around people who add and remove the free-threaded binaries and discover that this file has (probably) been deleted, in which case they can do a repair to get it back. Since it should be effectively identical to the same file from the free-threaded build, it shouldn't matter if both are installed.

Thanks @ngoldbaum for the PR!

Thanks @ngoldbaum for the PR, and @zooba for merging it 🌮🎉.. I'm working now to backport this PR to: 3.15.
🐍🍒⛏🤖

GH-149987 is a backport of this pull request to the 3.15 branch.