diff --git a/index.php b/index.php
index 315b43c..b7fdfff 100644
--- a/index.php
+++ b/index.php
@@ -58,11 +58,21 @@
 |
 | Let's attempt to determine the full-server path to the "system"
 | folder in order to reduce the possibility of path problems.
+| Note: We only attempt this if the user hasn't specified a 
+| full server path.
 |
 */
-if (function_exists('realpath') AND @realpath(dirname(__FILE__)) !== FALSE)
+if (strpos($system_folder, '/') === FALSE)
 {
-	$system_folder = str_replace("\\", "/", realpath(dirname(__FILE__))).'/'.$system_folder;
+	if (function_exists('realpath') AND @realpath(dirname(__FILE__)) !== FALSE)
+	{
+		$system_folder = realpath(dirname(__FILE__)).'/'.$system_folder;
+	}
+}
+else
+{
+	// Swap directory separators to Unix style for consistency
+	$system_folder = str_replace("\\", "/", $system_folder); 
 }
 
 /*