diff --git a/compat/mingw.c b/compat/mingw.c
index 0ff550cef3e673..63f36c893bfe96 100644
--- a/compat/mingw.c
+++ b/compat/mingw.c
@@ -502,7 +502,7 @@ static int mingw_open_append(wchar_t const *wfilename, int oflags, ...)
 	 * to append to the file.
 	 */
 	handle = CreateFileW(wfilename, FILE_APPEND_DATA,
-			FILE_SHARE_WRITE | FILE_SHARE_READ,
+			FILE_SHARE_WRITE | FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_DELETE,
 			NULL, create, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
 	if (handle == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
 		DWORD err = GetLastError();
@@ -532,6 +532,70 @@ static int mingw_open_append(wchar_t const *wfilename, int oflags, ...)
 	return fd;
 }
 
+/*
+ * Ideally, we'd use `_wopen()` to implement this functionality so that we
+ * don't have to reimplement it, but unfortunately we do not have tight control
+ * over the share mode there. And while `_wsopen()` and friends exist that give
+ * us _some_ control over the share mode, this family of functions doesn't give
+ * us the ability to enable FILE_SHARE_DELETE, either. But this is a strict
+ * requirement for us though so that we can unlink or rename over files that
+ * are held open by another process.
+ *
+ * We are thus forced to implement our own emulation of `open()`. To make our
+ * life simpler we only implement basic support for this, namely opening
+ * existing files for reading and/or writing. This means that newly created
+ * files won't have their sharing mode set up correctly, but for now I couldn't
+ * find any case where this matters. We may have to revisit that in the future
+ * though based on our needs.
+ */
+static int mingw_open_existing(const wchar_t *filename, int oflags, ...)
+{
+	SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES security_attributes = {
+		.nLength = sizeof(security_attributes),
+		.bInheritHandle = !(oflags & O_NOINHERIT),
+	};
+	HANDLE handle;
+	DWORD access;
+	int fd;
+
+	/* We only support basic flags. */
+	if (oflags & ~(O_ACCMODE | O_NOINHERIT)) {
+		errno = ENOSYS;
+		return -1;
+	}
+
+	switch (oflags & O_ACCMODE) {
+	case O_RDWR:
+		access = GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE;
+		break;
+	case O_WRONLY:
+		access = GENERIC_WRITE;
+		break;
+	default:
+		access = GENERIC_READ;
+		break;
+	}
+
+	handle = CreateFileW(filename, access,
+			     FILE_SHARE_WRITE | FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_DELETE,
+			     &security_attributes, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
+	if (handle == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
+		DWORD err = GetLastError();
+
+		/* See `mingw_open_append()` for why we have this conversion. */
+		if (err == ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER)
+			err = ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND;
+
+		errno = err_win_to_posix(err);
+		return -1;
+	}
+
+	fd = _open_osfhandle((intptr_t)handle, oflags | O_BINARY);
+	if (fd < 0)
+		CloseHandle(handle);
+	return fd;
+}
+
 /*
  * Does the pathname map to the local named pipe filesystem?
  * That is, does it have a "//./pipe/" prefix?
@@ -567,6 +631,8 @@ int mingw_open (const char *filename, int oflags, ...)
 
 	if ((oflags & O_APPEND) && !is_local_named_pipe_path(filename))
 		open_fn = mingw_open_append;
+	else if (!(oflags & ~(O_ACCMODE | O_NOINHERIT)))
+		open_fn = mingw_open_existing;
 	else
 		open_fn = _wopen;
 
@@ -1006,7 +1072,7 @@ int mingw_utime (const char *file_name, const struct utimbuf *times)
 
 	osfilehandle = CreateFileW(wfilename,
 				   FILE_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES,
-				   0 /*FileShare.None*/,
+				   FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_WRITE | FILE_SHARE_DELETE,
 				   NULL,
 				   OPEN_EXISTING,
 				   (attrs != INVALID_FILE_ATTRIBUTES &&
@@ -2155,10 +2221,16 @@ int mingw_accept(int sockfd1, struct sockaddr *sa, socklen_t *sz)
 #undef rename
 int mingw_rename(const char *pold, const char *pnew)
 {
+	static int supports_file_rename_info_ex = 1;
 	DWORD attrs, gle;
 	int tries = 0;
 	wchar_t wpold[MAX_PATH], wpnew[MAX_PATH];
-	if (xutftowcs_path(wpold, pold) < 0 || xutftowcs_path(wpnew, pnew) < 0)
+	int wpnew_len;
+
+	if (xutftowcs_path(wpold, pold) < 0)
+		return -1;
+	wpnew_len = xutftowcs_path(wpnew, pnew);
+	if (wpnew_len < 0)
 		return -1;
 
 	/*
@@ -2169,11 +2241,84 @@ int mingw_rename(const char *pold, const char *pnew)
 		return 0;
 	if (errno != EEXIST)
 		return -1;
+
 repeat:
-	if (MoveFileExW(wpold, wpnew, MOVEFILE_REPLACE_EXISTING))
-		return 0;
+	if (supports_file_rename_info_ex) {
+		/*
+		 * Our minimum required Windows version is still set to Windows
+		 * Vista. We thus have to declare required infrastructure for
+		 * FileRenameInfoEx ourselves until we bump _WIN32_WINNT to
+		 * 0x0A00. Furthermore, we have to handle cases where the
+		 * FileRenameInfoEx call isn't supported yet.
+		 */
+#define FILE_RENAME_FLAG_REPLACE_IF_EXISTS                  0x00000001
+#define FILE_RENAME_FLAG_POSIX_SEMANTICS                    0x00000002
+		FILE_INFO_BY_HANDLE_CLASS FileRenameInfoEx = 22;
+		struct {
+			/*
+			 * This is usually an unnamed union, but that is not
+			 * part of ISO C99. We thus inline the field, as we
+			 * really only care for the Flags field anyway.
+			 */
+			DWORD Flags;
+			HANDLE RootDirectory;
+			DWORD FileNameLength;
+			/*
+			 * The actual structure is defined with a single-character
+			 * flex array so that the structure has to be allocated on
+			 * the heap. As we declare this structure ourselves though
+			 * we can avoid the allocation and define FileName to have
+			 * MAX_PATH bytes.
+			 */
+			WCHAR FileName[MAX_PATH];
+		} rename_info = { 0 };
+		HANDLE old_handle = INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE;
+		BOOL success;
+
+		old_handle = CreateFileW(wpold, DELETE,
+					 FILE_SHARE_WRITE | FILE_SHARE_READ | FILE_SHARE_DELETE,
+					 NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
+		if (old_handle == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) {
+			errno = err_win_to_posix(GetLastError());
+			return -1;
+		}
+
+		rename_info.Flags = FILE_RENAME_FLAG_REPLACE_IF_EXISTS |
+				    FILE_RENAME_FLAG_POSIX_SEMANTICS;
+		rename_info.FileNameLength = wpnew_len * sizeof(WCHAR);
+		memcpy(rename_info.FileName, wpnew, wpnew_len * sizeof(WCHAR));
+
+		success = SetFileInformationByHandle(old_handle, FileRenameInfoEx,
+						     &rename_info, sizeof(rename_info));
+		gle = GetLastError();
+		CloseHandle(old_handle);
+		if (success)
+			return 0;
+
+		/*
+		 * When we see ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER we can assume that the
+		 * current system doesn't support FileRenameInfoEx. Keep us
+		 * from using it in future calls and retry.
+		 */
+		if (gle == ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER) {
+			supports_file_rename_info_ex = 0;
+			goto repeat;
+		}
+
+		/*
+		 * In theory, we shouldn't get ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED because we
+		 * always open files with FILE_SHARE_DELETE But in practice we
+		 * cannot assume that Git is the only one accessing files, and
+		 * other applications may not set FILE_SHARE_DELETE. So we have
+		 * to retry.
+		 */
+	} else {
+		if (MoveFileExW(wpold, wpnew, MOVEFILE_REPLACE_EXISTING))
+			return 0;
+		gle = GetLastError();
+	}
+
 	/* TODO: translate more errors */
-	gle = GetLastError();
 	if (gle == ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED &&
 	    (attrs = GetFileAttributesW(wpnew)) != INVALID_FILE_ATTRIBUTES) {
 		if (attrs & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY) {
diff --git a/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh b/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh
index babec7993e3f3e..eaf6fab6d29f01 100755
--- a/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh
+++ b/t/t0610-reftable-basics.sh
@@ -450,10 +450,12 @@ test_expect_success 'ref transaction: retry acquiring tables.list lock' '
 	)
 '
 
-# This test fails most of the time on Windows systems. The root cause is
+# This test fails most of the time on Cygwin systems. The root cause is
 # that Windows does not allow us to rename the "tables.list.lock" file into
-# place when "tables.list" is open for reading by a concurrent process.
-test_expect_success !WINDOWS 'ref transaction: many concurrent writers' '
+# place when "tables.list" is open for reading by a concurrent process. We have
+# worked around that in our MinGW-based rename emulation, but the Cygwin
+# emulation seems to be insufficient.
+test_expect_success !CYGWIN 'ref transaction: many concurrent writers' '
 	test_when_finished "rm -rf repo" &&
 	git init repo &&
 	(