diff --git a/mercurial/configitems.py b/mercurial/configitems.py
--- a/mercurial/configitems.py
+++ b/mercurial/configitems.py
@@ -155,3 +155,6 @@ coreconfigitem('ui', 'interactive',
 coreconfigitem('ui', 'quiet',
     default=False,
 )
+coreconfigitem('worker', 'backgroundclosemaxqueue',
+    default=384,
+)
diff --git a/mercurial/vfs.py b/mercurial/vfs.py
--- a/mercurial/vfs.py
+++ b/mercurial/vfs.py
@@ -550,7 +550,7 @@ class backgroundfilecloser(object):
 
         # Windows defaults to a limit of 512 open files. A buffer of 128
         # should give us enough headway.
-        maxqueue = ui.configint('worker', 'backgroundclosemaxqueue', 384)
+        maxqueue = ui.configint('worker', 'backgroundclosemaxqueue')
         threadcount = ui.configint('worker', 'backgroundclosethreadcount', 4)
 
         ui.debug('starting %d threads for background file closing\n' %