diff --git a/configure b/configure
index ba85bbb54b..8ccfe51673 100755
--- a/configure
+++ b/configure
@@ -3762,7 +3762,6 @@ if test "$safe_stack" = "yes"; then
 fi
 
 # If we're using a separate build tree, set it up now.
-# DIRS are directories which we simply mkdir in the build tree;
 # LINKS are things to symlink back into the source tree
 # (these can be both files and directories).
 # Caution: do not add files or directories here using wildcards. This
@@ -3774,12 +3773,6 @@ fi
 # UNLINK is used to remove symlinks from older development versions
 # that might get into the way when doing "git update" without doing
 # a "make distclean" in between.
-DIRS="tests tests/tcg tests/qapi-schema tests/qtest/libqos"
-DIRS="$DIRS tests/qtest tests/qemu-iotests tests/vm tests/fp tests/qgraph"
-DIRS="$DIRS docs docs/interop fsdev scsi"
-DIRS="$DIRS pc-bios/optionrom pc-bios/s390-ccw"
-DIRS="$DIRS roms/seabios"
-DIRS="$DIRS contrib/plugins/"
 LINKS="Makefile"
 LINKS="$LINKS tests/tcg/Makefile.target"
 LINKS="$LINKS pc-bios/optionrom/Makefile"
@@ -3807,9 +3800,9 @@ for bios_file in \
 do
     LINKS="$LINKS pc-bios/$(basename $bios_file)"
 done
-mkdir -p $DIRS
 for f in $LINKS ; do
     if [ -e "$source_path/$f" ]; then
+        mkdir -p `dirname ./$f`
         symlink "$source_path/$f" "$f"
     fi
 done