diff --git a/pkgs/development/octave-modules/windows/default.nix b/pkgs/development/octave-modules/windows/default.nix
index 8c25872f889a..19febc53dee6 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/octave-modules/windows/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/octave-modules/windows/default.nix
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
   lib,
   fetchFromGitHub,
   nix-update-script,
+  autoreconfHook,
 }:
 
 buildOctavePackage rec {
@@ -16,6 +17,25 @@ buildOctavePackage rec {
     sha256 = "sha256-hr94VALlAEwpqNU7imEN63M0BdPFSu5IznhWOn/mNiQ=";
   };
 
+  nativeBuildInputs = [
+    autoreconfHook
+  ];
+
+  # autoreconfHook provides an autoreconfPhase that is run as a
+  # preconfigurePhase, which means it runs AFTER the source is un-tarred, and
+  # before buildOctavePackage's buildPhase re-tars it up into a format for later
+  # consumption by Octave's "pkg build" command.
+  preAutoreconf = ''
+    pushd src
+    # Upstream's bootstrap script uses wget to fetch config.guess & config.sub
+    # and has them committed to the repository. We must remove them so autoreconf
+    # actually fires for our environment.
+    rm config.*
+  '';
+  postAutoreconf = ''
+    popd
+  '';
+
   passthru.updateScript = nix-update-script { extraArgs = [ "--version-regex=release-(.*)" ]; };
 
   meta = {