diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2024-09-27-15-58-10.gh-issue-124487.PAZTQf.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2024-09-27-15-58-10.gh-issue-124487.PAZTQf.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..0ffadb2755a2d0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Build/2024-09-27-15-58-10.gh-issue-124487.PAZTQf.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Windows builds now use Windows 8.1 as their API baseline (installation
+already required Windows 8.1).
diff --git a/PC/pyconfig.h.in b/PC/pyconfig.h.in
index d72d6282c2806f..424421f6ff1647 100644
--- a/PC/pyconfig.h.in
+++ b/PC/pyconfig.h.in
@@ -169,9 +169,9 @@ WIN32 is still required for the locale module.
 #endif /* MS_WIN64 */
 
 /* set the version macros for the windows headers */
-/* Python 3.9+ requires Windows 8 or greater */
-#define Py_WINVER 0x0602 /* _WIN32_WINNT_WIN8 */
-#define Py_NTDDI NTDDI_WIN8
+/* Python 3.12+ requires Windows 8.1 or greater */
+#define Py_WINVER 0x0603 /* _WIN32_WINNT_WINBLUE (8.1) */
+#define Py_NTDDI NTDDI_WINBLUE
 
 /* We only set these values when building Python - we don't want to force
    these values on extensions, as that will affect the prototypes and