diff --git a/builtin/help.c b/builtin/help.c
index 88480131cf9fa8..e8f79d7af54bce 100644
--- a/builtin/help.c
+++ b/builtin/help.c
@@ -379,17 +379,10 @@ static void get_html_page_path(struct strbuf *page_path, const char *page)
 	free(to_free);
 }
 
-/*
- * If open_html is not defined in a platform-specific way (see for
- * example compat/mingw.h), we use the script web--browse to display
- * HTML.
- */
-#ifndef open_html
 static void open_html(const char *path)
 {
 	execl_git_cmd("web--browse", "-c", "help.browser", path, (char *)NULL);
 }
-#endif
 
 static void show_html_page(const char *git_cmd)
 {
diff --git a/compat/mingw.c b/compat/mingw.c
index 26ae3ceec089cb..d8e6c7f67d0db9 100644
--- a/compat/mingw.c
+++ b/compat/mingw.c
@@ -2185,40 +2185,6 @@ int mingw_raise(int sig)
 }
 
 
-static const char *make_backslash_path(const char *path)
-{
-	static char buf[PATH_MAX + 1];
-	char *c;
-
-	if (strlcpy(buf, path, PATH_MAX) >= PATH_MAX)
-		die("Too long path: %.*s", 60, path);
-
-	for (c = buf; *c; c++) {
-		if (*c == '/')
-			*c = '\\';
-	}
-	return buf;
-}
-
-void mingw_open_html(const char *unixpath)
-{
-	const char *htmlpath = make_backslash_path(unixpath);
-	int r;
-	DECLARE_PROC_ADDR(shell32.dll, HINSTANCE, ShellExecuteA,
-			HWND, LPCSTR, LPCSTR, LPCSTR, LPCSTR, INT);
-
-	if (!INIT_PROC_ADDR(ShellExecuteA))
-		die("cannot load shell32.dll");
-
-	printf("Launching default browser to display HTML ...\n");
-	r = HCAST(int, ShellExecuteA(NULL, "open", htmlpath,
-				NULL, "\\", SW_SHOWNORMAL));
-	/* 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)
 {
 	DECLARE_PROC_ADDR(kernel32.dll, BOOL, CreateHardLinkW,
diff --git a/compat/mingw.h b/compat/mingw.h
index 3d832a70c9d088..756efc461241c5 100644
--- a/compat/mingw.h
+++ b/compat/mingw.h
@@ -459,9 +459,6 @@ extern char *mingw_query_user_email(void);
 #include <inttypes.h>
 #endif
 
-void mingw_open_html(const char *path);
-#define open_html mingw_open_html
-
 /**
  * Max length of long paths (exceeding MAX_PATH). The actual maximum supported
  * by NTFS is 32,767 (* sizeof(wchar_t)), but we choose an arbitrary smaller