diff --git a/frontends/monkey/main.c b/frontends/monkey/main.c
index 463f0bea6..578d148e4 100644
--- a/frontends/monkey/main.c
+++ b/frontends/monkey/main.c
@@ -422,7 +422,12 @@ main(int argc, char **argv)
 	setbuf(stderr, NULL);
 
 	/* Prep the search paths */
+#if defined(__montauk__)
+	/* see NS_RESPATH_SEP: ':' is part of a MontaukOS drive path */
+	respaths = nsmonkey_init_resource("${HOME}/.netsurf/;${NETSURFRES};"MONKEY_RESPATH";./frontends/monkey/res");
+#else
 	respaths = nsmonkey_init_resource("${HOME}/.netsurf/:${NETSURFRES}:"MONKEY_RESPATH":./frontends/monkey/res");
+#endif
 
 	/* initialise logging. Not fatal if it fails but not much we can do
 	 * about it either.
diff --git a/utils/filepath.c b/utils/filepath.c
index b87e2bf0d..9c4bcd34b 100644
--- a/utils/filepath.c
+++ b/utils/filepath.c
@@ -325,7 +325,7 @@ filepath_path_to_strvec(const char *path)
 	estart = eend = path;
 
 	while (strc < (MAX_RESPATH - 2)) {
-		while ( (*eend != 0) && (*eend != ':') )
+		while ( (*eend != 0) && (*eend != NS_RESPATH_SEP) )
 			eend++;
 		elen = eend - estart;
 
@@ -339,7 +339,7 @@ filepath_path_to_strvec(const char *path)
 		}
 
 		/* skip colons */
-		while (*eend == ':')
+		while (*eend == NS_RESPATH_SEP)
 			eend++;
 
 		/* check for termination */
diff --git a/utils/filepath.h b/utils/filepath.h
index 784264b33..469830a9d 100644
--- a/utils/filepath.h
+++ b/utils/filepath.h
@@ -24,6 +24,22 @@
 #ifndef _NETSURF_UTILS_FILEPATH_H_
 #define _NETSURF_UTILS_FILEPATH_H_
 
+/**
+ * Character separating elements of a resource path list.
+ *
+ * A colon cannot double as the list separator on platforms whose absolute
+ * paths already contain one -- MontaukOS names drives as "N:/dir", so
+ * "0:/os/netsurf/" would split into "0" and "/os/netsurf/", neither of which
+ * resolves.
+ */
+#ifndef NS_RESPATH_SEP
+#if defined(__montauk__)
+#define NS_RESPATH_SEP ';'
+#else
+#define NS_RESPATH_SEP ':'
+#endif
+#endif
+
 #include <stdarg.h>
 
 #include "utils/errors.h"