diff --git a/compat/mingw.c b/compat/mingw.c
index 25388e6fdd..a9710bc62f 100644
--- a/compat/mingw.c
+++ b/compat/mingw.c
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 #include "../cache.h"
 
 unsigned int _CRT_fmode = _O_BINARY;
+static const int delay[] = { 0, 1, 10, 20, 40 };
 
 int err_win_to_posix(DWORD winerr)
 {
@@ -158,9 +159,24 @@ int mingw_mkdir(const char *path, int mode)
 #undef unlink
 int mingw_unlink(const char *pathname)
 {
+	int ret, tries = 0;
+
 	/* read-only files cannot be removed */
 	chmod(pathname, 0666);
-	return unlink(pathname);
+	while ((ret = unlink(pathname)) == -1 && tries < ARRAY_SIZE(delay)) {
+		if (errno != EACCES)
+			break;
+		/*
+		 * We assume that some other process had the source or
+		 * destination file open at the wrong moment and retry.
+		 * In order to give the other process a higher chance to
+		 * complete its operation, we give up our time slice now.
+		 * If we have to retry again, we do sleep a bit.
+		 */
+		Sleep(delay[tries]);
+		tries++;
+	}
+	return ret;
 }
 
 #undef open
@@ -1226,7 +1242,6 @@ int mingw_rename(const char *pold, const char *pnew)
 {
 	DWORD attrs, gle;
 	int tries = 0;
-	static const int delay[] = { 0, 1, 10, 20, 40 };
 
 	/*
 	 * Try native rename() first to get errno right.