diff --git a/player/main-fn-win.c b/player/main-fn-win.c
index 9e46e4af5f..ad883dcba9 100644
--- a/player/main-fn-win.c
+++ b/player/main-fn-win.c
@@ -1,24 +1,53 @@
+#include <windows.h>
+
 #include "config.h"
-#include "core.h"
+
 #include "osdep/io.h"
 #include "osdep/terminal.h"
 
+#include "core.h"
+
 int wmain(int argc, wchar_t *argv[]);
 
 // mpv does its own wildcard expansion in the option parser
 int _dowildcard = 0;
 
+static bool is_valid_handle(HANDLE h)
+{
+    return h != INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE && h != NULL;
+}
+
+static bool has_redirected_stdio(void)
+{
+    return is_valid_handle(GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE)) ||
+           is_valid_handle(GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE)) ||
+           is_valid_handle(GetStdHandle(STD_ERROR_HANDLE));
+}
+
 int wmain(int argc, wchar_t *argv[])
 {
     // If started from the console wrapper (see osdep/win32-console-wrapper.c),
     // attach to the console and set up the standard IO handles
-    terminal_try_attach();
+    bool has_console = terminal_try_attach();
 
-    char **argv_u8 = talloc_zero_array(NULL, char*, argc + 1);
-    for (int i = 0; i < argc; i++)
-        argv_u8[i] = mp_to_utf8(argv_u8, argv[i]);
+    // If mpv is started from Explorer, the Run dialog or the Start Menu, it
+    // will have no console and no standard IO handles. In this case, the user
+    // is expecting mpv to show some UI, so enable the pseudo-GUI profile.
+    bool gui = !has_console && !has_redirected_stdio();
 
-    int ret = mpv_main(argc, argv_u8);
+    int argv_len = 0;
+    char **argv_u8 = NULL;
+
+    // Build mpv's UTF-8 argv, and add the pseudo-GUI profile if necessary
+    if (argv[0])
+        MP_TARRAY_APPEND(NULL, argv_u8, argv_len, mp_to_utf8(argv_u8, argv[0]));
+    if (gui)
+        MP_TARRAY_APPEND(NULL, argv_u8, argv_len, "--profile=pseudo-gui");
+    for (int i = 1; i < argc; i++)
+        MP_TARRAY_APPEND(NULL, argv_u8, argv_len, mp_to_utf8(argv_u8, argv[i]));
+    MP_TARRAY_APPEND(NULL, argv_u8, argv_len, NULL);
+
+    int ret = mpv_main(argv_len - 1, argv_u8);
 
     talloc_free(argv_u8);
     return ret;