diff --git a/libcloud/compute/base.py b/libcloud/compute/base.py
index 4cfcf46f7d..b3be0ad880 100644
--- a/libcloud/compute/base.py
+++ b/libcloud/compute/base.py
@@ -25,8 +25,9 @@
 import os
 import socket
 import binascii
+import platform
 
-from libcloud.utils.py3 import b
+from libcloud.utils.py3 import b, PY2
 
 import libcloud.compute.ssh
 from libcloud.pricing import get_size_price
@@ -1294,10 +1295,19 @@ def is_supported(address):
             """
             Return True for supported address.
             """
-            if force_ipv4 and not is_valid_ip_address(address=address,
-                                                      family=socket.AF_INET):
-                return False
-            return True
+            if PY2 and os.name == 'nt' and platform.python_implementation() == 'CPython':
+                # Addressing non-backported fix, reported/patched: https://bugs.python.org/issue7171
+                if force_ipv4:
+                    try:
+                        socket.inet_aton(address)
+                    except socket.error:
+                        return False
+                    return True
+                else:
+                    raise NotImplementedError('IPv6 address validation unsupported on Windows CPython 2')
+
+            return is_valid_ip_address(address=address,
+                                       family=socket.AF_INET if force_ipv4 else socket.AF_INET6)
 
         def filter_addresses(addresses):
             """
diff --git a/libcloud/utils/py3.py b/libcloud/utils/py3.py
index 7ae9cd6431..2e95a1f85d 100644
--- a/libcloud/utils/py3.py
+++ b/libcloud/utils/py3.py
@@ -36,11 +36,9 @@
 PY2_pre_279 = PY2 and sys.version_info < (2, 7, 9)
 PY3_pre_32 = PY3 and sys.version_info < (3, 2)
 
-PY2 = False
 PY25 = False
 PY26 = False
 PY27 = False
-PY3 = False
 PY32 = False
 
 if sys.version_info >= (2, 0) and sys.version_info < (3, 0):