diff --git a/pkgs/tools/X11/xdg-user-dirs/default.nix b/pkgs/tools/X11/xdg-user-dirs/default.nix
index bb26c0f46ce..8829427b79c 100644
--- a/pkgs/tools/X11/xdg-user-dirs/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/tools/X11/xdg-user-dirs/default.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{ stdenv, fetchurl, libxslt, docbook_xsl }:
+{ stdenv, fetchurl, libxslt, docbook_xsl, makeWrapper }:
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   name = "xdg-user-dirs-0.15";
@@ -8,7 +8,12 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     sha256 = "20b4a751f41d0554bce3e0ce5e8d934be98cc62d48f0b90a894c3e1916552786";
   };
 
-  buildInputs = [ libxslt docbook_xsl ];
+  buildInputs = [ libxslt docbook_xsl makeWrapper ];
+
+  preFixup = ''
+    wrapProgram "$out/bin/xdg-user-dirs-update" \
+      --prefix XDG_CONFIG_DIRS : "$out/etc/xdg"
+  '';
 
   meta = with stdenv.lib; {
     homepage = http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/xdg-user-dirs;