diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 05b16038..98d1b222 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ NEWS
   * Removed debian/, openwrt/ and cygwin/; they weren't kept up-to-date, and we decided to remove dist. specific stuff
   * Try to convert string options to shorts for numeric options in config file; allows to use env-vars for numeric options. (#1159, thx andrewb)
   * Do not cache default vhost in mod_simple_vhost (#709)
+  * Trust pcre-config, do not check for pcre manually (#1769)
 
 - 1.4.20 - 2008-09-30
 
diff --git a/configure.in b/configure.in
index fb466d41..505ed947 100644
--- a/configure.in
+++ b/configure.in
@@ -258,15 +258,8 @@ if test "x$cross_compiling" = xno -a "$WITH_PCRE" != "no"; then
   if test x"$PCRECONFIG" != x; then
     PCRE_LIB=`$PCRECONFIG --libs`
     CPPFLAGS="$CPPFLAGS `$PCRECONFIG --cflags`"
-    OLDLIBS="$LIBS"
-    LIBS="$LIBS $PCRE_LIB"
-    AC_CHECK_LIB(pcre, pcre_compile, [
-      AC_CHECK_HEADERS([pcre.h], [
-        AC_DEFINE([HAVE_LIBPCRE], [1], [libpcre])
-        AC_DEFINE([HAVE_PCRE_H], [1])
-      ])
-    ])
-    LIBS="$OLDLIBS"
+    AC_DEFINE([HAVE_LIBPCRE], [1], [libpcre])
+    AC_DEFINE([HAVE_PCRE_H], [1], [pcre.h])
   else
      AC_MSG_ERROR([pcre-config not found, install the pcre-devel package or build with --without-pcre])
   fi