diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml
index 99d9eb0ca72..61e4e397c94 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_ctl-ref.sgml
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
@@ -134,16 +134,19 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
In mode, a new server is launched. The
- server is started in the background, and standard input is attached to
- /dev/null. The standard output and standard
- error are either appended to a log file (if the
- option is used), or redirected to pg_ctl's
- standard output (not standard error). If no log file is chosen, the
- standard output of pg_ctl should be redirected
- to a file or piped to another process such as a log rotating program
- like rotatelogs>; otherwise postgres
- will write its output to the controlling terminal (from the background)
- and will not leave the shell's process group.
+ server is started in the background, and standard input is attached
+ to /dev/null (or nul> on Windows).
+ On Unix-like systems, by default, the server's standard output and
+ standard error are send to pg_ctl's
+ standard output (not standard error). The standard output of
+ pg_ctl should then be redirected to a
+ file or piped to another process such as a log rotating program
+ like rotatelogs>; otherwise postgres
+ will write its output to the controlling terminal (from the
+ background) and will not leave the shell's process group. On
+ Windows, by default the server's standard output and standard error
+ are sent to the terminal. These default behaviors can be changed
+ by using to append server output to a log file.