diff --git a/include/wx/msw/setup0.h b/include/wx/msw/setup0.h
index 974ff8dd99..b64b5e0c7d 100644
--- a/include/wx/msw/setup0.h
+++ b/include/wx/msw/setup0.h
@@ -274,6 +274,8 @@
 // Set to 1 to use socket classes
 #define wxUSE_SOCKETS       1
 
+#if wxUSE_GUI
+
 // Set to 1 to enable virtual file systems (required by wxHTML)
 #define wxUSE_FILESYSTEM    1
 
@@ -290,6 +292,18 @@
 // wxUSE_LIBPNG.
 #define wxUSE_ZLIB          1
 
+#else // !wxUSE_GUI
+
+// although it is possible to compile all of those in wxBase, this is not done
+// by default
+#define wxUSE_FILESYSTEM    0
+#define wxUSE_FS_ZIP        0
+#define wxUSE_FS_INET       0
+#define wxUSE_ZIPSTREAM     0
+#define wxUSE_ZLIB          0
+
+#endif // wxUSE_GUI/!wxUSE_GUI
+
 // If enabled, the code written by Apple will be used to write, in a portable
 // way, float on the disk. See extended.c for the license which is different
 // from wxWindows one.
@@ -886,6 +900,17 @@
 
 #endif // Win16
 
+// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+// undef the things which don't make sense for wxBase build
+// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+#if !wxUSE_GUI
+
+#undef wxUSE_HTML
+#define wxUSE_HTML 0
+
+#endif // !wxUSE_GUI
+
 // ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 // check the settings consistency: do it here to abort compilation immediately
 // and not almost in the very end when the relevant file fails to compile and