diff --git a/pyspark.cmd b/pyspark.cmd
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..7c26fbbac2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyspark.cmd
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+@echo off
+
+rem
+rem Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+rem contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+rem this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+rem The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+rem (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+rem the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+rem
+rem    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+rem
+rem Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+rem distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+rem WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+rem See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+rem limitations under the License.
+rem
+
+rem This is the entry point for running PySpark. To avoid polluting the
+rem environment, it just launches a new cmd to do the real work.
+
+cmd /V /E /C %~dp0pyspark2.cmd %*
diff --git a/pyspark2.cmd b/pyspark2.cmd
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..f58e349643
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pyspark2.cmd
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+@echo off
+
+rem
+rem Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+rem contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+rem this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+rem The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+rem (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+rem the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+rem
+rem    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+rem
+rem Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+rem distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+rem WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+rem See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+rem limitations under the License.
+rem
+
+set SCALA_VERSION=2.9.3
+
+rem Figure out where the Spark framework is installed
+set FWDIR=%~dp0
+
+rem Export this as SPARK_HOME
+set SPARK_HOME=%FWDIR%
+
+rem Test whether the user has built Spark
+if exist "%FWDIR%RELEASE" goto skip_build_test
+set FOUND_JAR=0
+for %%d in ("%FWDIR%assembly\target\scala-%SCALA_VERSION%\spark-assembly*hadoop*.jar") do (
+  set FOUND_JAR=1
+)
+if "%FOUND_JAR%"=="0" (
+  echo Failed to find Spark assembly JAR.
+  echo You need to build Spark with sbt\sbt assembly before running this program.
+  goto exit
+)
+:skip_build_test
+
+rem Load environment variables from conf\spark-env.cmd, if it exists
+if exist "%FWDIR%conf\spark-env.cmd" call "%FWDIR%conf\spark-env.cmd"
+
+rem Figure out which Python to use.
+if "x%PYSPARK_PYTHON%"=="x" set PYSPARK_PYTHON=python
+
+set PYTHONPATH=%FWDIR%python;%PYTHONPATH%
+
+set OLD_PYTHONSTARTUP=%PYTHONSTARTUP%
+set PYTHONSTARTUP=%FWDIR%python\pyspark\shell.py
+
+echo Running %PYSPARK_PYTHON% with PYTHONPATH=%PYTHONPATH%
+
+"%PYSPARK_PYTHON%" %*
+:exit
diff --git a/python/pyspark/java_gateway.py b/python/pyspark/java_gateway.py
index 26fbe0f080..e615c1e9b6 100644
--- a/python/pyspark/java_gateway.py
+++ b/python/pyspark/java_gateway.py
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
 import os
 import sys
 import signal
+import platform
 from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
 from threading import Thread
 from py4j.java_gateway import java_import, JavaGateway, GatewayClient
@@ -29,12 +30,18 @@ SPARK_HOME = os.environ["SPARK_HOME"]
 def launch_gateway():
     # Launch the Py4j gateway using Spark's run command so that we pick up the
     # proper classpath and SPARK_MEM settings from spark-env.sh
-    command = [os.path.join(SPARK_HOME, "spark-class"), "py4j.GatewayServer",
+    on_windows = platform.system() == "Windows"
+    script = "spark-class.cmd" if on_windows else "spark-class"
+    command = [os.path.join(SPARK_HOME, script), "py4j.GatewayServer",
                "--die-on-broken-pipe", "0"]
-    # Don't send ctrl-c / SIGINT to the Java gateway:
-    def preexec_function():
-        signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal.SIG_IGN)
-    proc = Popen(command, stdout=PIPE, stdin=PIPE, preexec_fn=preexec_function)
+    if not on_windows:
+        # Don't send ctrl-c / SIGINT to the Java gateway:
+        def preexec_func():
+            signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal.SIG_IGN)
+        proc = Popen(command, stdout=PIPE, stdin=PIPE, preexec_fn=preexec_func)
+    else:
+        # preexec_fn not supported on Windows
+        proc = Popen(command, stdout=PIPE, stdin=PIPE)
     # Determine which ephemeral port the server started on:
     port = int(proc.stdout.readline())
     # Create a thread to echo output from the GatewayServer, which is required