Try what I tried in r23343 again...

chrome/chrome.gyp

 # Copyright (c) 2009 The Chromium Authors. All rights reserved.
 # Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
 # found in the LICENSE file.
 
 {
   'variables': {
     'chromium_code': 1,
+
+    # Whether or not browser sync code is built in.
+    'chrome_personalization': 1,
+
+    # Used to build and statically link a stub (no-op) syncapi engine.
+    'use_syncapi_stub' : 1,
+
     # Define the common dependencies that contain all the actual
     # Chromium functionality.  This list gets pulled in below by
     # the link of the actual chrome (or chromium) executable on
     # Linux or Mac, and into chrome.dll on Windows.
     'chromium_dependencies': [
       'common',
       'browser',
       'debugger',
       'renderer',
       'utility',
@@ skipping 85 matching lines @@
         ],
       }],
       ['OS=="win"', {'sources/': [
         ['include', '_(views|win)(_unittest)?\\.cc$'],
         ['include', '/win/'],
         ['include', '/(views|win)_[^/]*\\.cc$'],
       ]}],
       ['OS=="linux" and toolkit_views==1', {'sources/': [
         ['include', '_views\\.cc$'],
       ]}],
+      ['OS=="win" and use_syncapi_stub==1', {
+        'defines': ['COMPILING_SYNCAPI_STUB'],
+      }],  # use_syncapi_stub==1
+      ['OS=="win" and chrome_personalization==1', {
+         'defines': ['CHROME_PERSONALIZATION=1'],
+      }],  # chrome_personalization==1
     ],
   },
   'targets': [
     {
       # TODO(mark): It would be better if each static library that needed
       # to run grit would list its own .grd files, but unfortunately some
       # of the static libraries currently have circular dependencies among
       # generated headers.
       'target_name': 'chrome_resources',
       'type': 'none',
@@ skipping 5360 matching lines @@
               # Use outputs of this action as inputs for the main target build.
               # Seems as a misnomer but makes this happy on Linux (scons).
               'process_outputs_as_sources': 1,
             },
           ],  # 'actions'
         },
       ]
     }],
   ],  # 'conditions'
 }