VS 9.0 doesn't ship with cabarc.exe. Windows developers have to install the CAB SDK

pep-0101.txt

@@ -311,7 +311,8 @@ How to Make A Release
       and AMD64). He has one checkout tree per target architecture,
       and builds the pcbuild.sln project for the appropriate
       architecture. He then edits Tools/msi/config.py to update
-      full_current_version, and runs msi.py with ActivePython 2.5.
+      full_current_version, sets snapshot to False and runs msi.py with 
+      ActivePython 2.5 or Python 2.5 with pywin32.
       For that to work, the following prerequisites must be met:
 
       - PC\icons.mak must have been run with nmake.
@@ -323,6 +324,9 @@ How to Make A Release
         architecture in its path (VS 2003 for x86, the platform
         SDK for AMD64).
 
+      - The cmd.exe window must also have cabarc.exe from the CAB SDK
+        in its path.
+
       The WE checksums the files (*.msi and *.chm), uploads them to
       some place in the net, and emails you the location and md5sums.