diff --git a/taglib/toolkit/tfilestream.cpp b/taglib/toolkit/tfilestream.cpp
index 6077d705..52252023 100644
--- a/taglib/toolkit/tfilestream.cpp
+++ b/taglib/toolkit/tfilestream.cpp
@@ -58,16 +58,10 @@ namespace {
   {
     DWORD access = readOnly ? GENERIC_READ : (GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE);
 
-    HANDLE handle;
     if(wcslen(path) > 0)
-      handle = CreateFileW(path, access, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL);
+      return CreateFileW(path, access, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL);
     else
-      handle = CreateFileA(path, access, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL);
-
-    if(handle == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
-      handle = NULL;
-
-    return handle;
+      return CreateFileA(path, access, FILE_SHARE_READ, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, NULL);
   }
 
   size_t fread(void *ptr, size_t size, size_t nmemb, HANDLE stream)