diff --git a/compat/compat.h.in b/compat/compat.h.in
index df9449b..0f99765 100644
--- a/compat/compat.h.in
+++ b/compat/compat.h.in
@@ -15,6 +15,12 @@
 #ifndef _COMPAT_H_
 #define _COMPAT_H_
 
+#ifdef _WIN32
+/* headers are broken on Windows, which means that some of them simply *have* to come first */
+# include <winsock2.h>
+# include <ws2tcpip.h>
+#endif
+
 #include <limits.h>
 #include <pthread.h>
 #include <stdarg.h>
diff --git a/compat/posix-shims/unistd.h b/compat/posix-shims/unistd.h
index 85040b2..95bcecc 100644
--- a/compat/posix-shims/unistd.h
+++ b/compat/posix-shims/unistd.h
@@ -1,6 +1,10 @@
 #ifndef _UNISTD_H
 #define _UNISTD_H    1
 
+/* headers are broken on Windows, which means that some of them simply *have* to come first */
+# include <winsock2.h>
+# include <ws2tcpip.h>
+
 /* This is intended as a drop-in replacement for unistd.h on Windows.
  * Please add functionality as neeeded.
  * https://stackoverflow.com/a/826027/1202830