diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 99d10cf8..58d86609 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -16,9 +16,16 @@
   user's toolchain, and left downstream packages with no TBB library to link
   against. Building it ourselves gives every platform the same oneTBB and makes
   the ABI a property of RcppParallel. `TBB_LIB` / `TBB_INC` are still honoured
-  for anyone supplying their own build. This requires cmake, which Rtools has
-  shipped since Rtools42; toolchains without one continue to use the tinythread
-  fallback.
+  for anyone supplying their own build.
+
+* Building RcppParallel now requires cmake (>= 3.5) on all platforms, as
+  `SystemRequirements` has always declared. Previously a missing or unusable
+  cmake was fatal everywhere except Windows, where it instead produced a
+  package with no TBB backend at all -- a silently degraded install that was
+  easy to end up with and hard to notice. TBB is now always enabled. Rtools has
+  shipped cmake since Rtools42, so this should not affect Windows users in
+  practice. Note that the tinythread backend remains selectable at runtime via
+  `RCPP_PARALLEL_BACKEND=tinythread`; it is only no longer a build outcome.
 
 * As a consequence, `RcppParallel::RcppParallelLibs()` now emits `-ltbb` and
   `-ltbbmalloc` on Windows, in addition to `-lRcppParallel` (which remains
diff --git a/src/install.libs.R b/src/install.libs.R
index 1e56e968..3b3cfdaa 100644
--- a/src/install.libs.R
+++ b/src/install.libs.R
@@ -481,18 +481,15 @@ args <- commandArgs(trailingOnly = TRUE)
 if (identical(args, "build")) {
    if (nzchar(tbbLib) && nzchar(tbbInc)) {
       useSystemTbb(tbbLib, tbbInc)
-   } else if (.Platform$OS.type == "windows" && !nzchar(Sys.getenv("CMAKE"))) {
-      # configure found neither a usable TBB nor a cmake to build one with
-      writeLines("** building RcppParallel without tbb backend")
    } else {
       useBundledTbb()
    }
 } else {
 
-   # prefer the configure-detected TBB_LIB when the environment variable
-   # is unset; otherwise, e.g. on Windows (where configure detects the
-   # Rtools copy of TBB), we'd wrongly take the bundled-TBB branch below,
-   # and ship any stale artifacts present in tbb/build/lib_release
+   # prefer the configure-detected TBB_LIB when the environment variable is
+   # unset; otherwise a TBB configured via TBB_ROOT (which sets TBB_LIB only in
+   # the generated tbb-autodetected.R) would wrongly take the bundled-TBB
+   # branch below, and ship any stale artifacts in tbb/build/lib_release
    source("../R/tbb-autodetected.R")
    if (!nzchar(tbbLib))
       tbbLib <- TBB_LIB
diff --git a/tools/config/configure.R b/tools/config/configure.R
index d3d1311f..6293fe13 100644
--- a/tools/config/configure.R
+++ b/tools/config/configure.R
@@ -111,11 +111,12 @@ if (tryAutoDetect) {
    
 }
 
-# if we didn't find a TBB to use, we'll build the bundled copy from
-# sources -- which requires cmake. on Windows, a cmake that is missing,
-# unusable or too old is not fatal: toolchains that can't build oneTBB
-# (e.g. Rtools40, which provides neither cmake nor a TBB) fall back to
-# tinythread instead
+# if we didn't find a TBB to use, we'll build the bundled copy from sources --
+# which requires cmake, on every platform. this is what 'SystemRequirements:
+# CMake (>= 3.5)' in DESCRIPTION declares, so a missing or unusable cmake is an
+# unmet system requirement and fails the install rather than quietly producing
+# a package with no TBB backend. (the tinythread backend is still selectable at
+# runtime via RCPP_PARALLEL_BACKEND; it is only no longer a build outcome.)
 define(CMAKE = "")
 buildBundledTbb <- FALSE
 
@@ -146,8 +147,8 @@ if (is.na(tbbLib)) {
    # (use the resolved path; cmake may not be on the PATH)
    #
    # any failure here -- a CMAKE pointing at nothing runnable, version output
-   # we can't parse -- is treated as 'no usable cmake' rather than allowed to
-   # propagate, so that Windows can still fall back to tinythread below
+   # we can't parse -- is reported as 'no usable cmake', so that the error
+   # names the actual problem rather than surfacing as a parse failure
    cmakeVersion <- NA
    if (!is.na(cmake)) {
       cmakeVersion <- tryCatch({
@@ -158,11 +159,7 @@ if (is.na(tbbLib)) {
 
    buildBundledTbb <- !is.na(cmakeVersion) && cmakeVersion >= "3.5"
 
-   if (buildBundledTbb) {
-
-      define(CMAKE = cmake)
-
-   } else {
+   if (!buildBundledTbb) {
 
       reason <- if (is.na(cmake)) {
          "cmake was not found"
@@ -172,16 +169,12 @@ if (is.na(tbbLib)) {
          sprintf("cmake %s is too old (need >= 3.5)", cmakeVersion)
       }
 
-      # not fatal on Windows: toolchains that can build neither an oneTBB nor
-      # anything else (e.g. Rtools40, which provides no cmake and no TBB) use
-      # the tinythread backend instead
-      if (.Platform$OS.type == "windows")
-         writeLines(paste0(reason, "; building RcppParallel without a tbb backend"))
-      else
-         stop("error: RcppParallel requires cmake (>= 3.5); ", reason)
+      stop("error: RcppParallel requires cmake (>= 3.5); ", reason)
 
    }
 
+   define(CMAKE = cmake)
+
 }
 
 # now, define TBB_LIB and TBB_INC as appropriate
@@ -205,11 +198,6 @@ pkgLibs <- if (!is.na(tbbLib)) {
       "-l$(TBB_MALLOC_NAME)"
    )
 
-} else if (!buildBundledTbb) {
-
-   # no TBB to link at all; the tinythread fallback is used instead
-   NULL
-
 } else if (R.version$os == "emscripten") {
 
    c(
@@ -245,13 +233,11 @@ if (!is.na(tbbLib)) {
 }
 
 # PKG_CXXFLAGS
-if (.Platform$OS.type == "windows" && is.na(tbbLib) && !buildBundledTbb) {
-   define(TBB_ENABLED = FALSE)
-   define(PKG_CXXFLAGS = "-DRCPP_PARALLEL_USE_TBB=0")
-} else {
-   define(TBB_ENABLED = TRUE)
-   define(PKG_CXXFLAGS = "-DRCPP_PARALLEL_USE_TBB=1")
-}
+#
+# TBB is always enabled: either one was supplied via TBB_LIB / TBB_ROOT, or we
+# built the bundled copy, and failing to do either is fatal above
+define(TBB_ENABLED = TRUE)
+define(PKG_CXXFLAGS = "-DRCPP_PARALLEL_USE_TBB=1")
 
 # macOS needs some extra flags set
 if (Sys.info()[["sysname"]] == "Darwin") {