diff --git a/GNUmakefile.postamble b/GNUmakefile.postamble
index af99ddf..e96d4b3 100644
--- a/GNUmakefile.postamble
+++ b/GNUmakefile.postamble
@@ -48,14 +48,18 @@ EcAlarmSink.m_FILE_FILTER_OUT_FLAGS = -O%
 
 # Automatically run ./configure if needed to generate the makefiles
 # which we need in order to do our job.  If you need any special
-# argument to ./configure, you can't rely on this rule, and you must
-# always run ./configure manually.  This rule is usually executed
+# argument to ./configure, you can't rely on this rule, and you should
+# usually run ./configure manually.  This rule is often executed
 # whenever 'make xxx' is invoked after a 'make distclean' - which is
 # why we can't guess what the ./configure arguments were last time
 # ./configure was called - make distclean cleans the sources
 # completely, wiping out any memory of specific configuration.
 config.make config.h: config.make.in config.h.in configure
-	./configure
+	if [ -x config.status ]; then \
+	  ./config.status --recheck; \
+	else \
+	  ./configure; \
+	fi
 	touch config.h
 	touch config.make