diff --git a/compat/mingw.c b/compat/mingw.c
index 4348b60296..cc47d6834a 100644
--- a/compat/mingw.c
+++ b/compat/mingw.c
@@ -1566,6 +1566,7 @@ void mingw_open_html(const char *unixpath)
 			const char *, const char *, const char *, INT);
 	T ShellExecute;
 	HMODULE shell32;
+	int r;
 
 	shell32 = LoadLibrary("shell32.dll");
 	if (!shell32)
@@ -1575,9 +1576,12 @@ void mingw_open_html(const char *unixpath)
 		die("cannot run browser");
 
 	printf("Launching default browser to display HTML ...\n");
-	ShellExecute(NULL, "open", htmlpath, NULL, "\\", 0);
-
+	r = (int)ShellExecute(NULL, "open", htmlpath, NULL, "\\", SW_SHOWNORMAL);
 	FreeLibrary(shell32);
+	/* see the MSDN documentation referring to the result codes here */
+	if (r <= 32) {
+		die("failed to launch browser for %.*s", MAX_PATH, unixpath);
+	}
 }
 
 int link(const char *oldpath, const char *newpath)