diff --git a/gdb/Makefile.in b/gdb/Makefile.in
index 5dae3e6..a8bae82 100644
--- a/gdb/Makefile.in
+++ b/gdb/Makefile.in
@@ -1680,7 +1680,7 @@ ALLDEPFILES = \
 	m68klinux-nat.c m68klinux-tdep.c \
 	m88k-tdep.c m88kbsd-nat.c \
 	microblaze-tdep.c microblaze-linux-tdep.c \
-	mingw-hdep.c \
+	mingw-hdep.c common/mingw-strerror.c \
 	mips-linux-nat.c mips-linux-tdep.c \
 	mips-sde-tdep.c \
 	mips-tdep.c \
@@ -1690,7 +1690,7 @@ ALLDEPFILES = \
 	nios2-tdep.c nios2-linux-tdep.c \
 	nbsd-nat.c nbsd-tdep.c obsd-nat.c obsd-tdep.c \
 	somread.c solib-som.c \
-	posix-hdep.c \
+	posix-hdep.c common/posix-strerror.c \
 	ppc-sysv-tdep.c ppc-linux-nat.c ppc-linux-tdep.c ppc64-tdep.c \
 	ppcfbsd-nat.c ppcfbsd-tdep.c \
 	ppcnbsd-nat.c ppcnbsd-tdep.c \
@@ -2228,6 +2228,14 @@ common-exceptions.o: ${srcdir}/common/common-exceptions.c
 	$(COMPILE) $(srcdir)/common/common-exceptions.c
 	$(POSTCOMPILE)
 
+posix-strerror.o: ${srcdir}/common/posix-strerror.c
+	$(COMPILE) $(srcdir)/common/posix-strerror.c
+	$(POSTCOMPILE)
+
+mingw-strerror.o: ${srcdir}/common/mingw-strerror.c
+	$(COMPILE) $(srcdir)/common/mingw-strerror.c
+	$(POSTCOMPILE)
+
 #
 # gdb/target/ dependencies
 #
diff --git a/gdb/common/common-utils.h b/gdb/common/common-utils.h
index f110924..60aa030 100644
--- a/gdb/common/common-utils.h
+++ b/gdb/common/common-utils.h
@@ -62,4 +62,10 @@ int xsnprintf (char *str, size_t size, const char *format, ...)
 
 char *savestring (const char *ptr, size_t len);
 
+/* The strerror() function can return NULL for errno values that are
+   out of range.  Provide a "safe" version that always returns a
+   printable string.  */
+
+extern char *safe_strerror (int);
+
 #endif
diff --git a/gdb/common/common.host b/gdb/common/common.host
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..74c4515
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gdb/common/common.host
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+# Mapping of configurations into GDB host definitions.  This is
+# invoked from the autoconf generated configure script.
+
+# This file sets the following shell variables:
+#  gdb_host_obs			host-specific .o files to include when building GDB
+#  srv_host_obs			likewise, but when building gdbserver
+
+case "${host}" in
+
+i[34567]86-*-mingw32*)	gdb_host_obs="mingw-hdep.o mingw-strerror.o"
+			srv_host_obs="mingw-strerror.o"
+			;;
+x86_64-*-mingw*)        gdb_host_obs="mingw-hdep.o mingw-strerror.o"
+			srv_host_obs="mingw-strerror.o"
+			;;
+
+esac
diff --git a/gdb/common/mingw-strerror.c b/gdb/common/mingw-strerror.c
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c62c42d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gdb/common/mingw-strerror.c
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+/* Safe version of strerror for MinGW, for GDB, the GNU debugger.
+
+   Copyright (C) 2006-2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+
+   This file is part of GDB.
+
+   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+   the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
+   (at your option) any later version.
+
+   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+   GNU General Public License for more details.
+
+   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+   along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.  */
+
+#include "common-defs.h"
+
+#include <windows.h>
+
+/* Implementation of safe_strerror as defined in common-utils.h.
+
+   The Windows runtime implementation of strerror never returns NULL,
+   but does return a useless string for anything above sys_nerr;
+   unfortunately this includes all socket-related error codes.
+   This replacement tries to find a system-provided error message.  */
+
+char *
+safe_strerror (int errnum)
+{
+  static char *buffer;
+  int len;
+
+  if (errnum >= 0 && errnum < sys_nerr)
+    return strerror (errnum);
+
+  if (buffer)
+    {
+      LocalFree (buffer);
+      buffer = NULL;
+    }
+
+  if (FormatMessage (FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER
+		     | FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM,
+		     NULL, errnum,
+		     MAKELANGID (LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_DEFAULT),
+		     (LPTSTR) &buffer, 0, NULL) == 0)
+    {
+      static char buf[32];
+      xsnprintf (buf, sizeof buf, "(undocumented errno %d)", errnum);
+      return buf;
+    }
+
+  /* Windows error messages end with a period and a CR-LF; strip that
+     out.  */
+  len = strlen (buffer);
+  if (len > 3 && strcmp (buffer + len - 3, ".\r\n") == 0)
+    buffer[len - 3] = '\0';
+
+  return buffer;
+}
diff --git a/gdb/common/posix-strerror.c b/gdb/common/posix-strerror.c
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..119fcf6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/gdb/common/posix-strerror.c
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+/* Safe version of strerror for POSIX systems for GDB, the GNU debugger.
+
+   Copyright (C) 2006-2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+
+   This file is part of GDB.
+
+   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+   the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
+   (at your option) any later version.
+
+   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+   GNU General Public License for more details.
+
+   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+   along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.  */
+
+#include "common-defs.h"
+
+/* Implementation of safe_strerror as defined in common-utils.h.  */
+
+char *
+safe_strerror (int errnum)
+{
+  char *msg;
+
+  msg = strerror (errnum);
+  if (msg == NULL)
+    {
+      static char buf[32];
+
+      xsnprintf (buf, sizeof buf, "(undocumented errno %d)", errnum);
+      msg = buf;
+    }
+  return (msg);
+}
diff --git a/gdb/configure b/gdb/configure
index 7ff74ba..2d53196 100755
--- a/gdb/configure
+++ b/gdb/configure
@@ -5298,7 +5298,7 @@ fi
 
 # Provide defaults for some variables set by the per-host and per-target
 # configuration.
-gdb_host_obs=posix-hdep.o
+gdb_host_obs="posix-hdep.o posix-strerror.o"
 
 if test "${target}" = "${host}"; then
   gdb_native=yes
@@ -5307,6 +5307,7 @@ else
 fi
 
 . $srcdir/configure.host
+. $srcdir/common/common.host
 
 # Accumulate some settings from configure.tgt over all enabled targets
 
diff --git a/gdb/configure.ac b/gdb/configure.ac
index ec776d7..e03c747 100644
--- a/gdb/configure.ac
+++ b/gdb/configure.ac
@@ -195,7 +195,7 @@ esac],[want64=false])dnl
 
 # Provide defaults for some variables set by the per-host and per-target
 # configuration.
-gdb_host_obs=posix-hdep.o
+gdb_host_obs="posix-hdep.o posix-strerror.o"
 
 if test "${target}" = "${host}"; then
   gdb_native=yes
@@ -204,6 +204,7 @@ else
 fi
 
 . $srcdir/configure.host
+. $srcdir/common/common.host
 
 # Accumulate some settings from configure.tgt over all enabled targets
 
diff --git a/gdb/configure.host b/gdb/configure.host
index d07be4b..9f8a917 100644
--- a/gdb/configure.host
+++ b/gdb/configure.host
@@ -7,7 +7,6 @@
 #  gdb_host_float_format	host's float floatformat, or 0
 #  gdb_host_double_format	host's double floatformat, or 0
 #  gdb_host_long_double_format	host's long double floatformat, or 0
-#  gdb_host_obs			host-specific .o files to include
 
 # Map host cpu into the config cpu subdirectory name.
 # The default is $host_cpu.
@@ -105,7 +104,6 @@ i[34567]86-*-netbsdelf* | i[34567]86-*-knetbsd*-gnu)
 			gdb_host=nbsdelf ;;
 i[34567]86-*-go32*)	gdb_host=go32 ;;
 i[34567]86-*-mingw32*)	gdb_host=mingw
-			gdb_host_obs=mingw-hdep.o
 			;;
 i[34567]86-*-msdosdjgpp*) gdb_host=go32 ;;
 i[34567]86-*-linux*)	gdb_host=linux ;;
@@ -181,7 +179,6 @@ x86_64-*-netbsd* | x86_64-*-knetbsd*-gnu)
 			gdb_host=nbsd64 ;;
 x86_64-*-openbsd*)	gdb_host=obsd64 ;;
 x86_64-*-mingw*)        gdb_host=mingw64
-			gdb_host_obs=mingw-hdep.o
 			;;
 x86_64-*-cygwin*)	gdb_host=cygwin64 ;;
 m32r*-*-linux*)          gdb_host=linux ;;
diff --git a/gdb/contrib/ari/gdb_ari.sh b/gdb/contrib/ari/gdb_ari.sh
index 8a8cec8..b868a17 100644
--- a/gdb/contrib/ari/gdb_ari.sh
+++ b/gdb/contrib/ari/gdb_ari.sh
@@ -603,8 +603,8 @@ BEGIN { doc["strerror"] = "\
 Do not use strerror(), instead use safe_strerror()"
     category["strerror"] = ari_regression
     fix("strerror", "gdb/gdb_string.h", 1)
-    fix("strerror", "gdb/mingw-hdep.c", 1)
-    fix("strerror", "gdb/posix-hdep.c", 1)
+    fix("strerror", "gdb/common/mingw-strerror.c", 1)
+    fix("strerror", "gdb/common/posix-strerror.c", 1)
 }
 /(^|[^_[:alnum:]])strerror[[:space:]]*\(/ {
     fail("strerror")
diff --git a/gdb/gdbserver/Makefile.in b/gdb/gdbserver/Makefile.in
index 1ed2ec8..f05f450 100644
--- a/gdb/gdbserver/Makefile.in
+++ b/gdb/gdbserver/Makefile.in
@@ -518,6 +518,12 @@ rsp-low.o: ../common/rsp-low.c
 common-utils.o: ../common/common-utils.c
 	$(COMPILE) $<
 	$(POSTCOMPILE)
+posix-strerror.o: ../common/posix-strerror.c
+	$(COMPILE) $<
+	$(POSTCOMPILE)
+mingw-strerror.o: ../common/mingw-strerror.c
+	$(COMPILE) $<
+	$(POSTCOMPILE)
 vec.o: ../common/vec.c
 	$(COMPILE) $<
 	$(POSTCOMPILE)
diff --git a/gdb/gdbserver/configure b/gdb/gdbserver/configure
index 45efc51..cddc8d7 100755
--- a/gdb/gdbserver/configure
+++ b/gdb/gdbserver/configure
@@ -5537,7 +5537,12 @@ $as_echo "$gdb_cv_m68k_is_coldfire" >&6; }
     ;;
 esac
 
+# Initialize as POSIX.  This will change if the host is MingW.
+
+srv_host_obs="posix-strerror.o"
+
 . ${srcdir}/configure.srv
+. ${srcdir}/../common/common.host
 
 if test "${srv_mingwce}" = "yes"; then
   LIBS="$LIBS -lws2"
@@ -6034,7 +6039,7 @@ $as_echo "#define USE_XML 1" >>confdefs.h
   done
 fi
 
-GDBSERVER_DEPFILES="$srv_regobj $srv_tgtobj $srv_hostio_err_objs $srv_thread_depfiles"
+GDBSERVER_DEPFILES="$srv_regobj $srv_tgtobj $srv_hostio_err_objs $srv_thread_depfiles $srv_host_obs"
 GDBSERVER_LIBS="$srv_libs"
 
 { $as_echo "$as_me:${as_lineno-$LINENO}: checking whether the target supports __sync_*_compare_and_swap" >&5
diff --git a/gdb/gdbserver/configure.ac b/gdb/gdbserver/configure.ac
index 02082cc..31fa42d 100644
--- a/gdb/gdbserver/configure.ac
+++ b/gdb/gdbserver/configure.ac
@@ -240,7 +240,12 @@ got it
     ;;
 esac
 
+# Initialize as POSIX.  This will change if the host is MingW.
+
+srv_host_obs="posix-strerror.o"
+
 . ${srcdir}/configure.srv
+. ${srcdir}/../common/common.host
 
 if test "${srv_mingwce}" = "yes"; then
   LIBS="$LIBS -lws2"
@@ -385,7 +390,7 @@ if test "$srv_xmlfiles" != ""; then
   done
 fi
 
-GDBSERVER_DEPFILES="$srv_regobj $srv_tgtobj $srv_hostio_err_objs $srv_thread_depfiles"
+GDBSERVER_DEPFILES="$srv_regobj $srv_tgtobj $srv_hostio_err_objs $srv_thread_depfiles $srv_host_obs"
 GDBSERVER_LIBS="$srv_libs"
 
 dnl Check whether the target supports __sync_*_compare_and_swap.
diff --git a/gdb/mingw-hdep.c b/gdb/mingw-hdep.c
index c0cc385..a0ed281 100644
--- a/gdb/mingw-hdep.c
+++ b/gdb/mingw-hdep.c
@@ -35,50 +35,6 @@ static HANDLE sigint_event;
    function.  */
 struct async_signal_handler *sigint_handler;
 
-/* The strerror() function can return NULL for errno values that are
-   out of range.  Provide a "safe" version that always returns a
-   printable string.
-
-   The Windows runtime implementation of strerror never returns NULL,
-   but does return a useless string for anything above sys_nerr;
-   unfortunately this includes all socket-related error codes.
-   This replacement tries to find a system-provided error message.  */
-
-char *
-safe_strerror (int errnum)
-{
-  static char *buffer;
-  int len;
-
-  if (errnum >= 0 && errnum < sys_nerr)
-    return strerror (errnum);
-
-  if (buffer)
-    {
-      LocalFree (buffer);
-      buffer = NULL;
-    }
-
-  if (FormatMessage (FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER
-		     | FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM,
-		     NULL, errnum,
-		     MAKELANGID (LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_DEFAULT),
-		     (LPTSTR) &buffer, 0, NULL) == 0)
-    {
-      static char buf[32];
-      xsnprintf (buf, sizeof buf, "(undocumented errno %d)", errnum);
-      return buf;
-    }
-
-  /* Windows error messages end with a period and a CR-LF; strip that
-     out.  */
-  len = strlen (buffer);
-  if (len > 3 && strcmp (buffer + len - 3, ".\r\n") == 0)
-    buffer[len - 3] = '\0';
-
-  return buffer;
-}
-
 /* Return an absolute file name of the running GDB, if possible, or
    ARGV0 if not.  The return value is in malloc'ed storage.  */
 
diff --git a/gdb/posix-hdep.c b/gdb/posix-hdep.c
index 13cddba..fef5ec1 100644
--- a/gdb/posix-hdep.c
+++ b/gdb/posix-hdep.c
@@ -22,26 +22,6 @@
 
 #include "gdb_select.h"
 
-/* The strerror() function can return NULL for errno values that are
-   out of range.  Provide a "safe" version that always returns a
-   printable string.  */
-
-char *
-safe_strerror (int errnum)
-{
-  char *msg;
-
-  msg = strerror (errnum);
-  if (msg == NULL)
-    {
-      static char buf[32];
-
-      xsnprintf (buf, sizeof buf, "(undocumented errno %d)", errnum);
-      msg = buf;
-    }
-  return (msg);
-}
-
 /* Wrapper for select.  Nothing special needed on POSIX platforms.  */
 
 int
diff --git a/gdb/utils.h b/gdb/utils.h
index 3debde7..e58260c 100644
--- a/gdb/utils.h
+++ b/gdb/utils.h
@@ -42,9 +42,6 @@ ULONGEST strtoulst (const char *num, const char **trailer, int base);
 int compare_positive_ints (const void *ap, const void *bp);
 int compare_strings (const void *ap, const void *bp);
 
-/* This is defined in *-hdep.c, e.g., posix-hdep.c.  */
-extern char *safe_strerror (int);
-
 /* A wrapper for bfd_errmsg to produce a more helpful error message
    in the case of bfd_error_file_ambiguously recognized.
    MATCHING, if non-NULL, is the corresponding argument to
