I see that adding a separate module was proposed in issue #8408, which was rejected/closed. I don't have the rights to reopen, so I'll continue here.

#8408 was proposing a new module, which seems a bit overkill, since the implementation for unix and windows is about 20 lines.

I'm attaching a second version of the patch which works on windows (tested with python3.2.2 on XP). Thanks to techtonik for pointing to a windows imlementation.