diff --git a/src/ng/urlUtils.js b/src/ng/urlUtils.js
index e821c08a3e9f..57880542191c 100644
--- a/src/ng/urlUtils.js
+++ b/src/ng/urlUtils.js
@@ -7,8 +7,14 @@
 // exactly the behavior needed here.  There is little value is mocking these out for this
 // service.
 var urlParsingNode = document.createElement("a");
+/*
+Matches paths for file protocol on windows,
+such as /C:/foo/bar, and captures only /foo/bar.
+*/
+var windowsFilePathExp = /^\/?.*?:(\/.*)/;
 var originUrl = urlResolve(window.location.href, true);
 
+
 /**
  *
  * Implementation Notes for non-IE browsers
@@ -27,7 +33,7 @@ var originUrl = urlResolve(window.location.href, true);
  * browsers.  However, the parsed components will not be set if the URL assigned did not specify
  * them.  (e.g. if you assign a.href = "foo", then a.protocol, a.host, etc. will be empty.)  We
  * work around that by performing the parsing in a 2nd step by taking a previously normalized
- * URL (e.g. by assining to a.href) and assigning it a.href again.  This correctly populates the
+ * URL (e.g. by assigning to a.href) and assigning it a.href again.  This correctly populates the
  * properties such as protocol, hostname, port, etc.
  *
  * IE7 does not normalize the URL when assigned to an anchor node.  (Apparently, it does, if one
@@ -62,7 +68,9 @@ var originUrl = urlResolve(window.location.href, true);
  *
  */
 function urlResolve(url) {
-  var href = url;
+  var href = url,
+      pathname;
+
   if (msie) {
     // Normalize before parse.  Refer Implementation Notes on why this is
     // done in two steps on IE.
@@ -72,7 +80,34 @@ function urlResolve(url) {
 
   urlParsingNode.setAttribute('href', href);
 
-  // $$urlParsingNode provides the UrlUtils interface - http://url.spec.whatwg.org/#urlutils
+  // ":"" protocol occurs on IE/Win for file://
+  /* jeffbcross and tbosch say:
+    Per section 3.3 of http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt,
+    the first path segment of a relative path reference
+    cannot contain a colon, so it is right to assume that
+    if the first section of the path contains a colon, it
+    is invalid.
+
+    However, to be safe, this check is only obliberating
+    the first segment if the LAST character of the segment
+    is a colon.
+
+    In Windows, on an anchor node on documents loaded from
+    the filesystem, the browser will return a pathname
+    prefixed with the drive name ('/C:/path') when a
+    pathname without a drive is set:
+      * a.setAttribute('href', '/foo')
+      * a.pathname === '/C:/foo' //true
+
+    Inside of Angular, we're always using pathnames that
+    do not include drive names for routing.
+  */
+
+  pathname = removeWindowsDriveName(urlParsingNode.pathname);
+  pathname = (pathname.charAt(0) === '/') ? pathname : '/' + pathname;
+
+
+  // urlParsingNode provides the UrlUtils interface - http://url.spec.whatwg.org/#urlutils
   return {
     href: urlParsingNode.href,
     protocol: urlParsingNode.protocol ? urlParsingNode.protocol.replace(/:$/, '') : '',
@@ -81,9 +116,15 @@ function urlResolve(url) {
     hash: urlParsingNode.hash ? urlParsingNode.hash.replace(/^#/, '') : '',
     hostname: urlParsingNode.hostname,
     port: urlParsingNode.port,
-    pathname: urlParsingNode.pathname && urlParsingNode.pathname.charAt(0) === '/' ?
-        urlParsingNode.pathname : '/' + urlParsingNode.pathname
+    pathname: pathname
   };
+
+  function removeWindowsDriveName (path) {
+    var firstPathSegmentMatch;
+
+    firstPathSegmentMatch = windowsFilePathExp.exec(path);
+    return firstPathSegmentMatch ? firstPathSegmentMatch[1] : path;
+  }
 }
 
 
diff --git a/test/ng/locationSpec.js b/test/ng/locationSpec.js
index 30f2f81aa0a4..7fdd5cff62dd 100644
--- a/test/ng/locationSpec.js
+++ b/test/ng/locationSpec.js
@@ -10,6 +10,49 @@ describe('$location', function() {
     jqLite(document).off('click');
   });
 
+
+  describe('File Protocol', function () {
+    var urlParsingNodePlaceholder;
+
+    beforeEach(inject(function ($sniffer) {
+      if ($sniffer.msie) return;
+
+      urlParsingNodePlaceholder = urlParsingNode;
+
+      //temporarily overriding the DOM element
+      //with output from IE, if not in IE
+      urlParsingNode = {
+        hash : "#/C:/",
+        host : "",
+        hostname : "",
+        href : "file:///C:/base#!/C:/foo",
+        pathname : "/C:/foo",
+        port : "",
+        protocol : "file:",
+        search : "",
+        setAttribute: angular.noop
+      };
+    }));
+
+
+    afterEach(inject(function ($sniffer) {
+      if ($sniffer.msie) return;
+      //reset urlParsingNode
+      urlParsingNode = urlParsingNodePlaceholder;
+      expect(urlParsingNode.pathname).not.toBe('/C:/foo');
+    }));
+
+
+    it('should not spill over to path() on WIN', function (){
+      //See issue #4680 for details
+      url = new LocationHashbangUrl('file:///base', '#!');
+      url.$$parse('file:///base#!/foo?a=b&c#hash');
+
+      expect(url.path()).toBe('/foo');
+    });
+  });
+
+
   describe('NewUrl', function() {
     beforeEach(function() {
       url = new LocationHtml5Url('http://www.domain.com:9877/');