diff --git a/Contributors.rst b/Contributors.rst
index 6d7ad850a..37de797c9 100644
--- a/Contributors.rst
+++ b/Contributors.rst
@@ -62,6 +62,7 @@ The following is a list of people who have contributed to **DFHack**.
 - Antalia <tamarakorr@gmail.com>
 - Angus Mezick <amezick@gmail.com>
 - PeridexisErrant <PeridexisErrant@gmail.com>
+- Putnam
 
 And those are the cool people who made **stonesense**.
 
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 4823b2019..34092cce0 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ DFHack Future
             now you can remove syndromes by SYN_CLASS
         scripts/modtools/add-syndrome.lua
             now you can remove syndromes by SYN_CLASS
+        No longer writes empty .history files
 
 DFHack 0.40.15-r1
     Fixes:
diff --git a/library/include/Console.h b/library/include/Console.h
index 2f2f68cfa..ce3c90884 100644
--- a/library/include/Console.h
+++ b/library/include/Console.h
@@ -64,6 +64,8 @@ namespace  DFHack
         }
         bool save (const char * filename)
         {
+            if (!history.size())
+                return true;
             std::ofstream outfile (filename);
             //fprintf(stderr,"Save: Initialized stream\n");
             if(outfile.bad())
diff --git a/plugins/ruby/CMakeLists.txt b/plugins/ruby/CMakeLists.txt
index 73e8433d3..eaa08b10b 100644
--- a/plugins/ruby/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/plugins/ruby/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,19 +1,10 @@
-OPTION(DL_RUBY "download libruby from the internet" OFF)
 IF (NOT APPLE)
 	IF (UNIX)
-		IF (DL_RUBY)
-			FILE(DOWNLOAD http://cloud.github.com/downloads/jjyg/dfhack/libruby187.tar.gz ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/libruby187.tar.gz
-				EXPECTED_MD5 eb2adea59911f68e6066966c1352f291)
-		ENDIF(DL_RUBY)
 		EXECUTE_PROCESS(COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E tar xzf ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/libruby187.tar.gz
 			WORKING_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR})
 		FILE(RENAME ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/libruby1.8.so.1.8.7 ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/libruby.so)
 		SET(RUBYLIB ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/libruby.so)
 	ELSE (UNIX)
-		IF (DL_RUBY)
-			FILE(DOWNLOAD http://cloud.github.com/downloads/jjyg/dfhack/msvcrtruby187.tar.gz ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/msvcrtruby187.tar.gz
-				EXPECTED_MD5 9f4a1659ac3a5308f32d3a1937bbeeae)
-		ENDIF(DL_RUBY)
 		EXECUTE_PROCESS(COMMAND ${CMAKE_COMMAND} -E tar xzf ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/msvcrtruby187.tar.gz
 			WORKING_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR})
 		FILE(RENAME ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/msvcrt-ruby18.dll ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/libruby.dll)
@@ -21,15 +12,21 @@ IF (NOT APPLE)
 	ENDIF(UNIX)
 ENDIF(NOT APPLE)
 
+IF (APPLE OR UNIX)
+    SET(RUBYAUTOGEN ruby-autogen-gcc.rb)
+ELSE (APPLE OR UNIX)
+    SET(RUBYAUTOGEN ruby-autogen-win.rb)
+ENDIF (APPLE OR UNIX)
+
 ADD_CUSTOM_COMMAND(
-    OUTPUT ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/ruby-autogen.rb
-    COMMAND ${PERL_EXECUTABLE} ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/codegen.pl ${dfhack_SOURCE_DIR}/library/include/df/codegen.out.xml ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/ruby-autogen.rb
+    OUTPUT ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${RUBYAUTOGEN}
+    COMMAND ${PERL_EXECUTABLE} ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/codegen.pl ${dfhack_SOURCE_DIR}/library/include/df/codegen.out.xml ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${RUBYAUTOGEN}
     # cmake quirk: depending on codegen.out.xml or generate_headers only is not enough, needs both
     # test by manually patching any library/xml/moo.xml, run make ruby-autogen-rb -j2, and check build/plugins/ruby/ruby-autogen.rb for patched xml data
     DEPENDS generate_headers ${dfhack_SOURCE_DIR}/library/include/df/codegen.out.xml ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/codegen.pl
-    COMMENT ruby-autogen.rb
+    COMMENT ${RUBYAUTOGEN}
 )
-ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET(ruby-autogen-rb DEPENDS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/ruby-autogen.rb)
+ADD_CUSTOM_TARGET(ruby-autogen-rb DEPENDS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${RUBYAUTOGEN})
 
 INCLUDE_DIRECTORIES("${dfhack_SOURCE_DIR}/depends/tthread")
 
@@ -42,4 +39,4 @@ INSTALL(DIRECTORY .
         DESTINATION hack/ruby
         FILES_MATCHING PATTERN "*.rb")
 
-INSTALL(FILES ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/ruby-autogen.rb DESTINATION hack/ruby)
+INSTALL(FILES ${CMAKE_CURRENT_BINARY_DIR}/${RUBYAUTOGEN} DESTINATION hack/ruby)
diff --git a/plugins/ruby/ruby.rb b/plugins/ruby/ruby.rb
index af957c76b..21e1a29ff 100644
--- a/plugins/ruby/ruby.rb
+++ b/plugins/ruby/ruby.rb
@@ -241,7 +241,7 @@ end
 
 # load autogenned file
 require './hack/ruby/ruby-autogen-defs'
-require './hack/ruby/ruby-autogen'
+require(RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /mswin/i ? './hack/ruby/ruby-autogen-win' : './hack/ruby/ruby-autogen-gcc')
 
 # load all modules
-Dir['./hack/ruby/*.rb'].each { |m| require m.chomp('.rb') }
+Dir['./hack/ruby/*.rb'].each { |m| require m.chomp('.rb') if m !~ /ruby-autogen/ }