diff -urN a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
--- a/configure.ac	2014-10-11 14:19:00.396324700 +0100
+++ b/configure.ac	2014-10-11 14:19:03.057477000 +0100
@@ -578,6 +578,14 @@
 fi
 AC_MSG_RESULT($MACHDEP)
 
+AC_MSG_CHECKING([for init system calls])
+AC_SUBST(INITSYS)
+case $host in
+  *-*-mingw*)	INITSYS=nt;;
+  *)		INITSYS=posix;;
+esac
+AC_MSG_RESULT([$INITSYS])
+
 # Record the configure-time value of MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET,
 # it may influence the way we can build extensions, so distutils
 # needs to check it
diff -urN a/Modules/posixmodule.c b/Modules/posixmodule.c
--- a/Modules/posixmodule.c	2014-10-11 14:19:00.992358800 +0100
+++ b/Modules/posixmodule.c	2014-10-11 14:19:03.062477200 +0100
@@ -158,6 +158,25 @@
 #define HAVE_CWAIT      1
 #define HAVE_FSYNC      1
 #define fsync _commit
+#elif defined(__MINGW32__)	/* GCC for windows hosts */
+/* getlogin is detected by configure on mingw-w64 */
+#undef HAVE_GETLOGIN
+/*#define HAVE_GETCWD	1 - detected by configure*/
+#define HAVE_GETPPID    1
+#define HAVE_GETLOGIN   1
+#define HAVE_SPAWNV	1
+/*#define HAVE_EXECV	1 - detected by configure*/
+#define HAVE_PIPE	1
+#define HAVE_POPEN	1
+#define HAVE_SYSTEM	1
+#define HAVE_CWAIT	1
+#define HAVE_FSYNC	1
+#define fsync _commit
+#include <windows.h>
+#include <winioctl.h>
+#ifndef _MAX_ENV
+#define _MAX_ENV	32767
+#endif
 #else
 /* Unix functions that the configure script doesn't check for */
 #define HAVE_EXECV      1
@@ -282,7 +301,7 @@
 #endif
 #endif
 
-#ifdef _MSC_VER
+#ifdef MS_WINDOWS
 #ifdef HAVE_DIRECT_H
 #include <direct.h>
 #endif
@@ -1177,7 +1196,7 @@
 */
 #include <crt_externs.h>
 static char **environ;
-#elif !defined(_MSC_VER) && ( !defined(__WATCOMC__) || defined(__QNX__) )
+#elif !defined(MS_WINDOWS) && ( !defined(__WATCOMC__) || defined(__QNX__) )
 extern char **environ;
 #endif /* !_MSC_VER */
 
@@ -3931,8 +3950,6 @@
     return PyBytes_FromString(outbuf);
 } /* end of posix__getfullpathname */
 
-
-
 /* A helper function for samepath on windows */
 static PyObject *
 posix__getfinalpathname(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
@@ -12052,7 +12069,7 @@
 }
 
 
-#if (defined(_MSC_VER) || defined(__WATCOMC__) || defined(__BORLANDC__)) && !defined(__QNX__)
+#if defined(MS_WINDOWS) && !defined(__QNX__)
 #define INITFUNC PyInit_nt
 #define MODNAME "nt"
 
diff -urN a/Modules/Setup.config.in b/Modules/Setup.config.in
--- a/Modules/Setup.config.in	2014-10-11 14:19:00.985358400 +0100
+++ b/Modules/Setup.config.in	2014-10-11 14:19:03.064477400 +0100
@@ -3,6 +3,9 @@
 # The purpose of this file is to conditionally enable certain modules
 # based on configure-time options.
 
+# init system calls(posix/nt/...) for INITFUNC (used by makesetup)
+@INITSYS@ posixmodule.c
+
 # Threading
 @USE_THREAD_MODULE@_thread _threadmodule.c
 
diff -urN a/Modules/Setup.dist b/Modules/Setup.dist
--- a/Modules/Setup.dist	2014-10-11 14:19:01.130366700 +0100
+++ b/Modules/Setup.dist	2014-10-11 14:19:03.065477400 +0100
@@ -105,7 +105,6 @@
 # This only contains the minimal set of modules required to run the
 # setup.py script in the root of the Python source tree.
 
-posix posixmodule.c		# posix (UNIX) system calls
 errno errnomodule.c		# posix (UNIX) errno values
 pwd pwdmodule.c			# this is needed to find out the user's home dir
 				# if $HOME is not set