diff --git a/src/libespeak-ng/error.c b/src/libespeak-ng/error.c
index 8a0dfae1..a51d6102 100644
--- a/src/libespeak-ng/error.c
+++ b/src/libespeak-ng/error.c
@@ -120,9 +120,13 @@ ESPEAK_NG_API void espeak_ng_GetStatusCodeMessage(espeak_ng_STATUS status, char
 		strncpy0(buffer, "The phoneme manifest file does not contain any phonemes", length);
 		break;
 	default:
-		if ((status & ENS_GROUP_MASK) == ENS_GROUP_ERRNO)
+		if ((status & ENS_GROUP_MASK) == ENS_GROUP_ERRNO) {
+#ifdef PLATFORM_WINDOWS
+			strerror_s(buffer, length, status);
+#else
 			strerror_r(status, buffer, length);
-		else {
+#endif
+		} else {
 #ifdef PLATFORM_WINDOWS
 			sprintf(buffer, "Unspecified error 0x%x", status);
 #else