Backport the distutils part of r83399 to fix #7645.
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 8f95814..53b18d6 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -32,6 +32,8 @@
 Build
 -----
 
+- Backport r83399 to allow test_distutils to pass on installed versions.
+
 - Issue #1303434: Generate ZIP file containing all PDBs (already done for rc1).
 
 - Stop packaging versioncheck tool (already done for rc1).