diff --git a/Doc/distutils/apiref.rst b/Doc/distutils/apiref.rst
index ba4fc9f5a50..60c0dd8fe75 100644
--- a/Doc/distutils/apiref.rst
+++ b/Doc/distutils/apiref.rst
@@ -973,8 +973,8 @@ directories.
    Copy an entire directory tree *src* to a new location *dst*.  Both *src* and
    *dst* must be directory names.  If *src* is not a directory, raise
    :exc:`DistutilsFileError`.  If *dst* does  not exist, it is created with
-   :func:`mkpath`.  The end result of the  copy is that every file in *src* is
-   copied to *dst*, and  directories under *src* are recursively copied to *dst*.
+   :func:`mkpath`.  The end result of the copy is that every file in *src* is
+   copied to *dst*, and directories under *src* are recursively copied to *dst*.
    Return the list of files that were copied or might have been copied, using their
    output name. The return value is unaffected by *update* or *dry_run*: it is
    simply the list of all files under *src*, with the names changed to be under
@@ -987,6 +987,10 @@ directories.
    destination of the symlink will be copied.  *update* and *verbose* are the same
    as for :func:`copy_file`.
 
+   Files in *src* that begin with :file:`.nfs` are skipped (more information on
+   these files is available in answer D2 of the `NFS FAQ page
+   <http://nfs.sourceforge.net/#section_d>`_.
+
 
 .. function:: remove_tree(directory[, verbose=0, dry_run=0])
 
diff --git a/Lib/distutils/dir_util.py b/Lib/distutils/dir_util.py
index 9c5cf337c6c..5026e246685 100644
--- a/Lib/distutils/dir_util.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/dir_util.py
@@ -144,6 +144,10 @@ def copy_tree(src, dst, preserve_mode=1, preserve_times=1,
         src_name = os.path.join(src, n)
         dst_name = os.path.join(dst, n)
 
+        if n.startswith('.nfs'):
+            # skip NFS rename files
+            continue
+
         if preserve_symlinks and os.path.islink(src_name):
             link_dest = os.readlink(src_name)
             if verbose >= 1:
diff --git a/Lib/distutils/tests/test_dir_util.py b/Lib/distutils/tests/test_dir_util.py
index 693f77cf646..d82d9133d04 100644
--- a/Lib/distutils/tests/test_dir_util.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/tests/test_dir_util.py
@@ -101,6 +101,24 @@ class DirUtilTestCase(support.TempdirManager, unittest.TestCase):
         remove_tree(self.root_target, verbose=0)
         remove_tree(self.target2, verbose=0)
 
+    def test_copy_tree_skips_nfs_temp_files(self):
+        mkpath(self.target, verbose=0)
+
+        a_file = os.path.join(self.target, 'ok.txt')
+        nfs_file = os.path.join(self.target, '.nfs123abc')
+        for f in a_file, nfs_file:
+            fh = open(f, 'w')
+            try:
+                fh.write('some content')
+            finally:
+                fh.close()
+
+        copy_tree(self.target, self.target2)
+        self.assertEqual(os.listdir(self.target2), ['ok.txt'])
+
+        remove_tree(self.root_target, verbose=0)
+        remove_tree(self.target2, verbose=0)
+
     def test_ensure_relative(self):
         if os.sep == '/':
             self.assertEqual(ensure_relative('/home/foo'), 'home/foo')
diff --git a/Lib/distutils/tests/test_sdist.py b/Lib/distutils/tests/test_sdist.py
index 3a89f73fa2b..7e7d98d096c 100644
--- a/Lib/distutils/tests/test_sdist.py
+++ b/Lib/distutils/tests/test_sdist.py
@@ -91,9 +91,8 @@ class SDistTestCase(PyPIRCCommandTestCase):
 
     @unittest.skipUnless(zlib, "requires zlib")
     def test_prune_file_list(self):
-        # this test creates a package with some vcs dirs in it
-        # and launch sdist to make sure they get pruned
-        # on all systems
+        # this test creates a project with some VCS dirs and an NFS rename
+        # file, then launches sdist to check they get pruned on all systems
 
         # creating VCS directories with some files in them
         os.mkdir(join(self.tmp_dir, 'somecode', '.svn'))
@@ -107,6 +106,8 @@ class SDistTestCase(PyPIRCCommandTestCase):
         self.write_file((self.tmp_dir, 'somecode', '.git',
                          'ok'), 'xxx')
 
+        self.write_file((self.tmp_dir, 'somecode', '.nfs0001'), 'xxx')
+
         # now building a sdist
         dist, cmd = self.get_cmd()
 
diff --git a/Misc/ACKS b/Misc/ACKS
index e1adbe7006f..fed05535d90 100644
--- a/Misc/ACKS
+++ b/Misc/ACKS
@@ -688,6 +688,7 @@ Eduardo Pérez
 Brian Quinlan
 Anders Qvist
 Burton Radons
+Jeff Ramnani
 Brodie Rao
 Antti Rasinen
 Sridhar Ratnakumar
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 94da2775349..063a6dbf3ef 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -14,6 +14,9 @@ Core and Builtins
   longer raised due to a read system call returning EINTR from within these
   methods.
 
+- Issue #7719: Make distutils ignore ``.nfs*`` files instead of choking later
+  on.  Initial patch by SilentGhost and Jeff Ramnani.
+
 - Issue #10053: Don't close FDs when FileIO.__init__ fails. Loosely based on
   the work by Hirokazu Yamamoto.