diff --git a/libavutil/x86/x86util.asm b/libavutil/x86/x86util.asm
index 7b259cae6e..da41e2e5ef 100644
--- a/libavutil/x86/x86util.asm
+++ b/libavutil/x86/x86util.asm
@@ -1025,14 +1025,12 @@
 
 ; NASM panics when emitting CodeView debug info for an empty translation unit.
 ; GNU binutils `strip` and some other tools such as older MSVC linker also fail
-; on such files. Emit a dummy byte in a COMDAT section to work around this.
-; The linker will discard it since __x86util_notref is not referenced anywhere.
+; on such files. Emit a dummy byte in a section with IMAGE_SCN_LNK_REMOVE flag
+; to work around these issues. Sections like that are dropped by the linker.
 %ifidn __OUTPUT_FORMAT__,win64
-    section .text
-    section .text$__x86util_notref comdat=2:__x86util_notref
+    section .x86util info
         db 0
 %elifidn __OUTPUT_FORMAT__,win32
-    section .text
-    section .text$__x86util_notref comdat=2:__x86util_notref
+    section .x86util info
         db 0
 %endif