diff --git a/src/test/regress/pg_regress.c b/src/test/regress/pg_regress.c
index c8d190d248..8bfc336ec2 100644
--- a/src/test/regress/pg_regress.c
+++ b/src/test/regress/pg_regress.c
@@ -494,6 +494,25 @@ convert_sourcefiles_in(const char *source_subdir, const char *dest_dir, const ch
 
 	snprintf(testtablespace, MAXPGPATH, "%s/testtablespace", outputdir);
 
+#ifdef WIN32
+
+	/*
+	 * On Windows only, clean out the test tablespace dir, or create it if it
+	 * doesn't exist so as it is possible to run the regression tests as a
+	 * Windows administrative user account with the restricted token obtained
+	 * when starting pg_regress.  On other platforms we expect the Makefile
+	 * to take care of that.
+	 */
+	if (directory_exists(testtablespace))
+		if (!rmtree(testtablespace, true))
+		{
+			fprintf(stderr, _("\n%s: could not remove test tablespace \"%s\"\n"),
+					progname, testtablespace);
+			exit(2);
+		}
+	make_directory(testtablespace);
+#endif
+
 	/* finally loop on each file and do the replacement */
 	for (name = names; *name; name++)
 	{
diff --git a/src/tools/msvc/vcregress.pl b/src/tools/msvc/vcregress.pl
index d6763ad4ac..3365ee578c 100644
--- a/src/tools/msvc/vcregress.pl
+++ b/src/tools/msvc/vcregress.pl
@@ -123,8 +123,6 @@ sub installcheck_internal
 sub installcheck
 {
 	my $schedule = shift || 'serial';
-
-	CleanupTablespaceDirectory();
 	installcheck_internal($schedule);
 	return;
 }
@@ -145,7 +143,6 @@ sub check
 		"--temp-instance=./tmp_check");
 	push(@args, $maxconn)     if $maxconn;
 	push(@args, $temp_config) if $temp_config;
-	CleanupTablespaceDirectory();
 	system(@args);
 	my $status = $? >> 8;
 	exit $status if $status;
@@ -573,8 +570,8 @@ sub upgradecheck
 	$ENV{PGDATA} = "$data.old";
 	my $outputdir          = "$tmp_root/regress";
 	my @EXTRA_REGRESS_OPTS = ("--outputdir=$outputdir");
-	mkdir "$outputdir" || die $!;
-	CleanupTablespaceDirectory($outputdir);
+	mkdir "$outputdir"                || die $!;
+	mkdir "$outputdir/testtablespace" || die $!;
 
 	my $logdir = "$topdir/src/bin/pg_upgrade/log";
 	rmtree($logdir);
@@ -740,16 +737,6 @@ sub InstallTemp
 	return;
 }
 
-sub CleanupTablespaceDirectory
-{
-	my $testdir = shift || getcwd();
-
-	my $testtablespace = "$testdir/testtablespace";
-
-	rmtree($testtablespace) if (-d $testtablespace);
-	mkdir($testtablespace);
-}
-
 sub usage
 {
 	print STDERR