diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 90278d816..babefeab2 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 2009-09-30 Richard Frith-Macdonald <rfm@gnu.org>
 
 	* Source/NSLock.m: Fix BOOL methods to return YES or NO.
+	* Source/win32/GSFileHandle.m: Implement nul device handle.
+	* Source/NSTask.m: Try to avoid annoying colsole window with mingw32
 
 2009-09-27 Richard Frith-Macdonald <rfm@gnu.org>
 
diff --git a/Source/NSTask.m b/Source/NSTask.m
index fad89f7ae..eb9e93f33 100644
--- a/Source/NSTask.m
+++ b/Source/NSTask.m
@@ -1222,6 +1222,11 @@ quotedFromString(NSString *aString)
     }
   hErr = start_info.hStdError;
 
+  /* Tell the system not to show a window for the subtask.
+   */
+  start_info.wShowWindow = SW_HIDE;
+  start_info.dwFlags |= STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW;
+
   /* Make the handles inheritable only temporarily while launching the
    * child task.  This section must be lock protected so we don't have
    * another thread trying to launch at the same time and get handles
@@ -1238,11 +1243,16 @@ quotedFromString(NSString *aString)
     NULL,      			/* thread attrs */
     1,         			/* inherit handles */
     0
-//    |CREATE_NO_WINDOW
+    |CREATE_NO_WINDOW
 /* One would have thought the the CREATE_NO_WINDOW flag should be used,
  * but apparently this breaks for old 16bit applications/tools on XP.
+ * So maybe we want to leave it out?
+ */
+//    |DETACHED_PROCESS
+/* We don't set the DETACHED_PROCESS flag as it actually means that the
+ * child task should get a new Console allocated ... and that means it
+ * will pop up a console window ... which looks really bad.
  */
-    |DETACHED_PROCESS
     |CREATE_UNICODE_ENVIRONMENT,
     envp,			/* env block */
     (const unichar*)[[self currentDirectoryPath] fileSystemRepresentation],
diff --git a/Source/win32/GSFileHandle.m b/Source/win32/GSFileHandle.m
index 41264ec61..9b61e6f3b 100644
--- a/Source/win32/GSFileHandle.m
+++ b/Source/win32/GSFileHandle.m
@@ -1085,10 +1085,25 @@ NSString * const GSSOCKSRecvAddr = @"GSSOCKSRecvAddr";
 
 - (id) initWithNullDevice
 {
-  isNullDevice = YES;
-  isStandardFile = YES;
-  descriptor = -1;
-  return self;
+  int	d = _open("NUL", O_RDWR|O_BINARY);
+
+  if (d < 0)
+    {
+      RELEASE(self);
+      return nil;
+    }
+  else
+    {
+      self = [self initWithFileDescriptor: d closeOnDealloc: YES];
+      if (self != nil)
+	{
+	  connectOK = NO;
+	  acceptOK = NO;
+  	  isNullDevice = YES;
+  	  isStandardFile = YES;
+	}
+      return self;
+    }
 }
 
 - (id) initWithFileDescriptor: (int)desc closeOnDealloc: (BOOL)flag