diff --git a/hbase-server/src/test/data/TestMetaMigrationConvertToPB.README b/hbase-server/src/test/data/TestMetaMigrationConvertToPB.README
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..a4cecacae5c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/hbase-server/src/test/data/TestMetaMigrationConvertToPB.README
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+/**
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+TestMetaMigrationConvertToPB uses the file TestMetaMigrationConvertToPB.tgz  for testing
+upgrade to 0.96 from 0.92/0.94 cluster data. The files are untarred to the local
+filesystem, and copied over to a minidfscluster. However, since the directory
+name .META. causes problems on Windows, it has been renamed to -META- inside
+the .tgz file. After untarring and copying the contents to minidfs,
+TestMetaMigrationConvertToPB.setUpBeforeClass() renames the file back to .META.
+See https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HBASE-6821.
diff --git a/hbase-server/src/test/data/TestMetaMigrationConvertToPB.tgz b/hbase-server/src/test/data/TestMetaMigrationConvertToPB.tgz
index 2f6ad2c014a..8d6bff6a23c 100644
Binary files a/hbase-server/src/test/data/TestMetaMigrationConvertToPB.tgz and b/hbase-server/src/test/data/TestMetaMigrationConvertToPB.tgz differ
diff --git a/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/catalog/TestMetaMigrationConvertingToPB.java b/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/catalog/TestMetaMigrationConvertingToPB.java
index 441a4d5462c..c252e1d5944 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/catalog/TestMetaMigrationConvertingToPB.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/catalog/TestMetaMigrationConvertingToPB.java
@@ -109,6 +109,12 @@ public class TestMetaMigrationConvertingToPB {
     }
     doFsCommand(shell,
       new String [] {"-put", untar.toURI().toString(), hbaseRootDir.toString()});
+
+    //windows fix: tgz file has .META. directory renamed as -META- since the original is an illegal
+    //name under windows. So we rename it back. See src/test/data//TestMetaMigrationConvertingToPB.README and
+    //https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HBASE-6821
+    doFsCommand(shell, new String [] {"-mv", new Path(hbaseRootDir, "-META-").toString(),
+      new Path(hbaseRootDir, ".META.").toString()});
     // See whats in minihdfs.
     doFsCommand(shell, new String [] {"-lsr", "/"});
     TEST_UTIL.startMiniHBaseCluster(1, 1);