--- a/dlls/mscoree/corruntimehost.c	2019-11-15 23:53:45.000000000 +0100
+++ b/dlls/mscoree/corruntimehost.c	2019-12-04 23:34:01.260755697 +0100
@@ -1482,7 +1482,7 @@ __int32 WINAPI _CorExeMain(void)
     {
         for(i = 0; parsed_config.private_path[i] != 0; i++)
             if (parsed_config.private_path[i] == ';') number_of_private_paths++;
-        if (parsed_config.private_path[wcslen(parsed_config.private_path) - 1] != ';') number_of_private_paths++;
+        if (parsed_config.private_path[0] != 0 && parsed_config.private_path[wcslen(parsed_config.private_path) - 1] != ';') number_of_private_paths++;
         config_file_dir_size = (wcsrchr(config_file, '\\') - config_file) + 1;
         priv_path = HeapAlloc(GetProcessHeap(), 0, (number_of_private_paths + 1) * sizeof(WCHAR *));
         /* wcstok ignores trailing semicolons */