diff --git a/doc/hgrc.5.txt b/doc/hgrc.5.txt
--- a/doc/hgrc.5.txt
+++ b/doc/hgrc.5.txt
@@ -17,7 +17,9 @@ FILES
 
 Mercurial reads configuration data from several files, if they exist.
 The names of these files depend on the system on which Mercurial is
-installed.
+installed. Windows registry keys contain PATH-like strings, every
+part must reference a Mercurial.ini file or be a directory where *.rc
+files will be read.
 
 (Unix)    <install-root>/etc/mercurial/hgrc.d/*.rc::
 (Unix)    <install-root>/etc/mercurial/hgrc::
@@ -29,6 +31,8 @@ installed.
 
 (Unix)    /etc/mercurial/hgrc.d/*.rc::
 (Unix)    /etc/mercurial/hgrc::
+(Windows) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mercurial::
+  or::
 (Windows) C:\Mercurial\Mercurial.ini::
     Per-system configuration files, for the system on which Mercurial
     is running.  Options in these files apply to all Mercurial
diff --git a/mercurial/util_win32.py b/mercurial/util_win32.py
--- a/mercurial/util_win32.py
+++ b/mercurial/util_win32.py
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ import win32api
 from i18n import _
 import errno, os, pywintypes, win32con, win32file, win32process
 import cStringIO, winerror
+import osutil
 from win32com.shell import shell,shellcon
 
 class WinError:
@@ -179,6 +180,20 @@ def testpid(pid):
 
 def system_rcpath_win32():
     '''return default os-specific hgrc search path'''
+    try:
+        value = win32api.RegQueryValue(
+                win32con.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, 'SOFTWARE\\Mercurial')
+        rcpath = []
+        for p in value.split(os.pathsep):
+            if p.lower().endswith('mercurial.ini'):
+                rcpath.append(p)
+            elif os.path.isdir(p):
+                for f, kind in osutil.listdir(p):
+                    if f.endswith('.rc'):
+                        rcpath.append(os.path.join(p, f))
+        return rcpath
+    except pywintypes.error:
+        pass
     proc = win32api.GetCurrentProcess()
     try:
         # This will fail on windows < NT