diff --git a/setup/installer/windows/notes.rst b/setup/installer/windows/notes.rst
index d8ebfed53f..10a88087ff 100644
--- a/setup/installer/windows/notes.rst
+++ b/setup/installer/windows/notes.rst
@@ -116,7 +116,9 @@ tarball. Edit setup.py and set zip_safe=False. Then run::
 
 Run the following command to install python dependencies::
 
-    easy_install --always-unzip -U mechanize pyreadline python-dateutil dnspython cssutils clientform pycrypto cssselect
+    easy_install --always-unzip -U mechanize python-dateutil dnspython cssutils clientform pycrypto cssselect
+
+Install pyreadline from https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyreadline/2.0
 
 Install pywin32 and edit win32com\__init__.py setting _frozen = True and
 __gen_path__ to a temp dir (otherwise it tries to set it to a dir in the
diff --git a/src/calibre/utils/ipython.py b/src/calibre/utils/ipython.py
index 20e8c5160c..280f224619 100644
--- a/src/calibre/utils/ipython.py
+++ b/src/calibre/utils/ipython.py
@@ -8,18 +8,48 @@ __copyright__ = '2012, Kovid Goyal <kovid@kovidgoyal.net>'
 __docformat__ = 'restructuredtext en'
 
 import os
-from calibre.constants import iswindows, config_dir, get_version
+from calibre.constants import iswindows, cache_dir, get_version
 
-ipydir = os.path.join(config_dir, ('_' if iswindows else '.')+'ipython')
+ipydir = os.path.join(cache_dir(), 'ipython')
 
 BANNER = ('Welcome to the interactive calibre shell!\n')
 
-def simple_repl(user_ns={}):
+def setup_pyreadline():
     try:
-        import readline
-        readline
+        import pyreadline.rlmain
+        #pyreadline.rlmain.config_path=r"c:\xxx\pyreadlineconfig.ini"
+        import readline, atexit
+        import pyreadline.unicode_helper  # noqa
+        #Normally the codepage for pyreadline is set to be sys.stdout.encoding
+        #if you need to change this uncomment the following line
+        #pyreadline.unicode_helper.pyreadline_codepage="utf8"
     except ImportError:
-        pass
+        print("Module readline not available.")
+    else:
+        #import tab completion functionality
+        import rlcompleter
+
+        #Override completer from rlcompleter to disable automatic ( on callable
+        completer_obj = rlcompleter.Completer()
+        def nop(val, word):
+            return word
+        completer_obj._callable_postfix = nop
+        readline.set_completer(completer_obj.complete)
+
+        #activate tab completion
+        readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")
+        readline.read_history_file()
+        atexit.register(readline.write_history_file)
+        del readline, rlcompleter, atexit
+
+def simple_repl(user_ns={}):
+    if iswindows:
+        setup_pyreadline()
+    else:
+        try:
+            import readline  # noqa
+        except ImportError:
+            pass
 
     import code
     code.interact(BANNER, raw_input, user_ns)