diff --git a/core/src/main/java/hudson/XmlFile.java b/core/src/main/java/hudson/XmlFile.java
index 7594945024..f5b836ce36 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/hudson/XmlFile.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/hudson/XmlFile.java
@@ -167,7 +167,7 @@ public final class XmlFile {
         } catch(StreamException e) {
             throw new IOException2(e);
         } finally {
-            w.close();
+            w.abort();
         }
     }
 
diff --git a/core/src/main/java/hudson/model/Job.java b/core/src/main/java/hudson/model/Job.java
index 5e3b45c72f..a4548b2bbc 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/hudson/model/Job.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/hudson/model/Job.java
@@ -1011,26 +1011,29 @@ public abstract class Job<JobT extends Job<JobT, RunT>, RunT extends Run<JobT, R
             checkPermission(CONFIGURE);
             XmlFile configXmlFile = getConfigFile();
             AtomicFileWriter out = new AtomicFileWriter(configXmlFile.getFile());
-
             try {
-                // this allows us to use UTF-8 for storing data,
-                // plus it checks any well-formedness issue in the submitted
-                // data
-                Transformer t = TransformerFactory.newInstance()
-                        .newTransformer();
-                t.transform(new StreamSource(req.getReader()),
-                        new StreamResult(out));
-                out.close();
-            } catch (TransformerException e) {
-                throw new IOException2("Failed to persist configuration.xml", e);
+                try {
+                    // this allows us to use UTF-8 for storing data,
+                    // plus it checks any well-formedness issue in the submitted
+                    // data
+                    Transformer t = TransformerFactory.newInstance()
+                            .newTransformer();
+                    t.transform(new StreamSource(req.getReader()),
+                            new StreamResult(out));
+                    out.close();
+                } catch (TransformerException e) {
+                    throw new IOException2("Failed to persist configuration.xml", e);
+                }
+
+                // try to reflect the changes by reloading
+                new XmlFile(Items.XSTREAM, out.getTemporaryFile()).unmarshal(this);
+                onLoad(getParent(), getRootDir().getName());
+
+                // if everything went well, commit this new version
+                out.commit();
+            } finally {
+                out.abort(); // don't leave anything behind
             }
-
-            // try to reflect the changes by reloading
-            new XmlFile(Items.XSTREAM, out.getTemporaryFile()).unmarshal(this);
-            onLoad(getParent(), getRootDir().getName());
-
-            // if everything went well, commit this new version
-            out.commit();
             return;
         }
 
diff --git a/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/AtomicFileWriter.java b/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/AtomicFileWriter.java
index 01d295fd56..e18973caa9 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/AtomicFileWriter.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/AtomicFileWriter.java
@@ -95,21 +95,31 @@ public class AtomicFileWriter extends Writer {
     }
 
     /**
-     * When the write operation failed and you'd like to leave the original file intact,
-     * you can optionally call this method to clean up a temporary file that was created by this writer.
+     * When the write operation failed, call this method to
+     * leave the original file intact and remove the temporary file.
+     * This method can be safely invoked from the "finally" block, even after
+     * the {@link #commit()} is called, to simplify coding.
      */
     public void abort() throws IOException {
-        core.close();
+        close();
         tmpFile.delete();
     }
 
     public void commit() throws IOException {
         close();
-        if(destFile.exists() && !destFile.delete())
+        if(destFile.exists() && !destFile.delete()) {
+            tmpFile.delete();
             throw new IOException("Unable to delete "+destFile);
+        }
         tmpFile.renameTo(destFile);
     }
 
+    @Override
+    protected void finalize() throws Throwable {
+        // one way or the other, temporary file should be deleted.
+        tmpFile.delete();
+    }
+
     /**
      * Until the data is committed, this file captures
      * the written content.
diff --git a/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/TextFile.java b/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/TextFile.java
index de84e22d38..30f062507f 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/TextFile.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/TextFile.java
@@ -79,9 +79,8 @@ public class TextFile {
         try {
             w.write(text);
             w.commit();
-        } catch (IOException e) {
+        } finally {
             w.abort();
-            throw e;
         }
     }