diff --git a/lisp/doom-straight.el b/lisp/doom-straight.el
index 46ebabee7..7dd5bbce1 100644
--- a/lisp/doom-straight.el
+++ b/lisp/doom-straight.el
@@ -58,7 +58,15 @@
       straight-vc-git-default-clone-depth '(1 single-branch)
       ;; Install archives from forges instead of cloning them. Much faster and
       ;; lighter.
-      straight-vc-use-snapshot-installation (and (executable-find "tar") t))
+      straight-vc-use-snapshot-installation
+      ;; REVIEW: Add GNU tar checks here?
+      (and (executable-find "tar")
+           ;; Windows and BSD Linux are certain to have incompatible versions of
+           ;; tar out of the box, and straight gives us no way to customize the
+           ;; tar executable it uses, so we simply opt out of snapshots there.
+           (not (featurep :system 'windows))
+           (not (featurep :system 'bsd))
+           t))
 
 (with-eval-after-load 'straight
   ;; HACK: Doom relies on deferred compilation, which spares the user 20-50min