See SF #848614: distutils' msvccompiler now tries to detect that MSVC6
is installed but the registry settings are incomplete because the gui
has never been run.

Already backported to release23-maint.
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index c523e65..8097a03 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -146,6 +146,9 @@
 Library
 -------
 
+- Bug #848614: distutils' msvccompiler fails to find the MSVC6
+  compiler because of incomplete registry entries.
+
 - httplib.HTTP.putrequest now offers to omit the implicit Accept-Encoding.
 
 - Patch #841977: modulefinder didn't find extension modules in packages