diff --git a/lib/beautiful.lua b/lib/beautiful.lua
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..f6f0106a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/beautiful.lua
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+-- Work-around for broken systems which are updated by overwriting the awesome
+-- installation. This would not remove beautiful.lua from older awesome versions
+-- and thus breakage follows.
+-- The work-around is to use a pointless beautiful.lua file.
+return require("beautiful.init")
+
+-- vim: filetype=lua:expandtab:shiftwidth=4:tabstop=8:softtabstop=4:textwidth=80
diff --git a/lib/naughty.lua b/lib/naughty.lua
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..89eac7c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/naughty.lua
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+-- Work-around for broken systems which are updated by overwriting the awesome
+-- installation. This would not remove naughty.lua from older awesome versions
+-- and thus breakage follows.
+-- The work-around is to use a pointless naughty.lua file.
+return require("naughty.init")
+
+-- vim: filetype=lua:expandtab:shiftwidth=4:tabstop=8:softtabstop=4:textwidth=80