diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 874e529e58..20065b7a11 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -425,7 +425,8 @@ ifneq (,$(findstring MINGW,$(uname_S)))
 	NO_STRCASESTR=YesPlease
 	NO_STRLCPY=YesPlease
 	NO_ICONV=YesPlease
-	COMPAT_CFLAGS += -DNO_ETC_PASSWD -DNO_ST_BLOCKS -I compat
+	NO_SVN_TESTS=YesPlease
+	COMPAT_CFLAGS += -DNO_ETC_PASSWD -DNO_ST_BLOCKS -DSTRIP_EXTENSION=\".exe\" -I compat
 	COMPAT_OBJS += compat/mingw.o compat/fnmatch.o
 	EXTLIBS += -lws2_32 -lregex
 	X = .exe
diff --git a/git.c b/git.c
index a291177701..f893f373e1 100644
--- a/git.c
+++ b/git.c
@@ -280,6 +280,15 @@ static void handle_internal_command(int argc, const char **argv, char **envp)
 	};
 	int i;
 
+#ifdef STRIP_EXTENSION
+	i = strlen(argv[0]) - strlen(STRIP_EXTENSION);
+	if (i > 0 && !strcmp(argv[0] + i, STRIP_EXTENSION)) {
+		char *argv0 = strdup(argv[0]);
+		argv[0] = cmd = argv0;
+		argv0[i] = '\0';
+	}
+#endif
+
 	/* Turn "git cmd --help" into "git help cmd" */
 	if (argc > 1 && !strcmp(argv[1], "--help")) {
 		argv[1] = argv[0];
@@ -325,6 +334,16 @@ int main(int argc, const char **argv, char **envp)
 		cmd = slash;
 	}
 
+#ifdef __MINGW32__
+	slash = strrchr(cmd, '\\');
+	if (slash) {
+		*slash++ = 0;
+		if (cmd[1] == ':')
+			exec_path = cmd;
+		cmd = slash;
+	}
+#endif
+
 	/*
 	 * "git-xxxx" is the same as "git xxxx", but we obviously:
 	 *