Backport the distutils part of r83399 to fix #7645.
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index fc40da5..315b556 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -29,6 +29,8 @@
 Build
 -----
 
+- Backport r83399 to allow test_distutils to pass on installed versions.
+
 - Issue #1303434: Generate ZIP file containing all PDBs.
 
 Tests