Distribute pre-compiled python extension module with distutils

I solved this by overriding Extension.build_extension:

setup_args = { ... }
if platform.system() == 'Windows':
    class my_build_ext(build_ext):
        def build_extension(self, ext):
            ''' Copies the already-compiled pyd
            '''
            import shutil
            import os.path
            try:
                os.makedirs(os.path.dirname(self.get_ext_fullpath(ext.name)))
            except WindowsError, e:
                if e.winerror != 183: # already exists
                    raise


            shutil.copyfile(os.path.join(this_dir, r'..\..\bin\Python%d%d\my.pyd' % sys.version_info[0:2]), self.get_ext_fullpath(ext.name))

    setup_args['cmdclass'] = {'build_ext': my_build_ext }

setup(**setup_args)

Try a manifest template:

http://docs.python.org/distutils/sourcedist.html#specifying-the-files-to-distribute