The new msvc9compiler module supports VS 2005 and VS 2008. I've also fixed build_ext to support PCbuild8 and PCbuild9 and backported my fix for xxmodule.c from py3k. The old code msvccompiler is still in place in case somebody likes to build an extension with VS 2003 or earlier.
I've also updated the cygwin compiler module for VS 2005 and VS 2008. It works with VS 2005 but I'm unable to test it with VS 2008. We have to wait for a new version of cygwin.

Written by Charlie Shepherd for GHOP. Also fixes #1245.

Written by Jeff Wheeler for GHOP.

Written for GHOP by Rafal Rawicki.

Written for GHOP.

Written by h4wk.cz for GHOP.

Written by Michael Schneider for GHOP.

Credits to Michael Sloan from GHOP.

the start.

(will backport to 2.5)

Added PyFloat_GetMax(), PyFloat_GetMin() and PyFloat_GetInfo() to the float API.
Added a dictionary sys.float_info with information about the internal floating point type to the sys module.

Although pyconfig.h claims that WIN32 is obsolete it is still required for the locale module. locale.getdefaultlocale() fails silently w/o the WIN32 macro.

Fixed problem with regrtest caused by the additional of objects to _abcoll.

Georg Brandl has added fchmod() and fchown(). I've contributed lchown but I'm not able to test it on Linux. However it should be available on Mac and some other flavors of Unix.
I've made a quick test of fchmod() and fchown() on my system. They are working as expected.

The t# and w# formats were not correctly handled.

Will backport.

Moved the _DEBUG and NDEBUG macros to two new property files.
Fixed #1527 Problem with static libs on Windows
Updated README.txt

used types. Thanks Mark Dickinson.

(in deallocation of running threads, for example), so the PyGILState_Release()
function must still be functional.
On the other hand, _PyGILState_Fini() only frees memory, and can be called later.

Backport candidate, but only after some experts comment on it.

From GHOP by Josip Dzolonga.

it becomes the default startup project when opening the file
for the first time.

Credits go to Thomas Lamb, who wrote this as a task in the GHOP contest.

Also added a warning.warnpy3k() as convenient method for Python 3.x related deprecation warnings.

the imaginary part (as long as it's not complex).
Backport candidate?

Replaced import of the 'new' module with 'types' module and added a deprecation warning to the 'new' module.

module level.  Fixes issue 1755179.