-Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
+Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010
Free Software Foundation, Inc.
See the end of the file for license conditions.
Emacs for Windows
- This README file describes how to set up and run a precompiled version
- of GNU Emacs for Windows NT/2000/XP and Windows 95/98/Me. This
- distribution can be found on the ftp.gnu.org server and its mirrors:
+ This README file describes how to set up and run a precompiled
+ version of GNU Emacs for Windows. This distribution can be found on
+ the ftp.gnu.org server and its mirrors:
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/
This server contains other distributions, including the full Emacs
- source distribution and the lisp source distribution, as well as older
- releases of Emacs for Windows.
+ source distribution and a barebin distribution which can be installed
+ over it, as well as older releases of Emacs for Windows.
Answers to frequently asked questions, and further information about
this port of GNU Emacs and related software packages can be found via
http:
- http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html
+ http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/
* Preliminaries
Along with this file should be six subdirectories (bin, etc, info,
- lisp, lock, site-lisp). Depending on which distribution you have
- installed, the lisp subdirectory might contain both the lisp source
- (*.el) and compiled lisp files (*.elc), or just the compiled lisp
- files. If you don't have the lisp source files, you can obtain them
- by downloading the lisp source distribution or the full source
- distribution from the ftp site mentioned above.
+ lisp, leim, site-lisp). If you have downloaded the barebin
+ distribution, then it will contain only the bin directory and the
+ built in documentation in etc/DOC-X, the rest of the subdirectories
+ are in the src distribution, which the barebin distribution is
+ designed to be used with.
* Setting up Emacs
- To install Emacs, simply unpack all the files into a directory of your
- choice, but note that you might encounter minor problems if there is a
- space anywhere in the directory name. To complete the installation
- process, you can optionally run the program addpm.exe in the bin
- subdirectory. This will add some entries to the registry that tell
- Emacs where to find its support files, and put an icon for Emacs in
- the Start Menu under "Start -> Programs -> Gnu Emacs -> Emacs".
+ To install Emacs, simply unpack all the files into a directory of
+ your choice, but note that you might encounter minor problems if
+ there is a space anywhere in the directory name. To complete the
+ installation process, you can optionally run the program addpm.exe
+ in the bin subdirectory. This will put an icon for Emacs in the
+ Start Menu under "Start -> Programs -> Gnu Emacs".
Some users have reported that the Start Menu item is not created for
them. If this happens, just create your own shortcut to runemacs.exe,
eg. by dragging it on to the desktop or the Start button.
Note that running addpm is now an optional step; Emacs is able to
- locate all of its files without needing the information to be set in
- the environment or the registry, although such settings will still be
- obeyed if present. This is convenient for running Emacs on a machine
- which disallows registry changes, or on which software should not be
- installed. For instance, you can now run Emacs directly from a CD
- without copying or installing anything on the machine itself.
+ locate all of its files without needing any information to be set in
+ the environment or the registry, although such settings will still
+ be obeyed if present. This is convenient for running Emacs on a
+ machine which disallows registry changes, or on which software
+ should not be installed. For instance, you can now run Emacs
+ directly from a CD or USB flash drive without copying or installing
+ anything on the machine itself.
* Starting Emacs
To run Emacs, simply select Emacs from the Start Menu, or invoke
- runemacs.exe directly from Explorer or a command prompt. This will
- start Emacs in its default GUI mode, ready to use. If you have never
- used Emacs before, you should follow the tutorial at this point
- (select Emacs Tutorial from the Help menu), since Emacs is quite
- different from ordinary Windows applications in many respects.
+ runemacs.exe directly from Explorer or from a command prompt. This
+ will start Emacs in its default GUI mode, ready to use. If you have
+ never used Emacs before, you should follow the tutorial at this
+ point (select Emacs Tutorial from the Help menu), since Emacs is
+ quite different from ordinary Windows applications in many respects.
If you want to use Emacs in tty or character mode within a command
window, you can start it by typing "emacs -nw" at the command prompt.
Emacs comes with the following executable files in the bin directory.
- + emacs.exe - The main Emacs executable. As this is designed to run
+ + emacs.exe - The main Emacs executable. As this is designed to run
as both a text-mode application (emacs -nw) and as a GUI application,
it will pop up a command prompt window if run directly from Explorer.
without popping up a command prompt window.
+ emacsclient.exe - A command-line client program that can
- communicate with a running Emacs process. See the `Emacs Server'
- node of the Emacs manul.
+ communicate with a running Emacs process. See the `Emacs Server'
+ node of the Emacs manual.
+ emacsclientw.exe - A version of emacsclient that does not open
a command-line window.
the native shells in various versions of Windows.
+ ctags.exe, etags.exe - Tools for generating tag files. See the
- `Tags' node of the Emacs manual.
+ `Tags' node of the Emacs manual.
+ ebrowse.exe - A tool for generating C++ browse information. See the
`Ebrowse' manual.
`Movemail' node of the Emacs manual.
+ digest-doc.exe, sorted-doc.exe - Tools for rebuilding the
- built-in documentation.
+ built-in documentation.
* Image support
Emacs has built in support for XBM and PPM/PGM/PBM images, and the
libXpm library is bundled, providing XPM support (required for color
- toolbar icons and splash screen). Source for libXpm should be available
- on the same place as you got this binary distribution from. The version
+ toolbar icons and splash screen). Source for libXpm should be available
+ on the same place as you got this binary distribution from. The version
of libXpm bundled with this version of Emacs is 3.5.7, based on x.org's
libXpm library from X11R7.3.
Emacs can also support some other image formats with appropriate
- libraries. These libraries are all available as part of GTK, or from
- gnuwin32.sourceforge.net. Emacs will find them if the directory they
+ libraries. These libraries are all available as part of GTK, or from
+ gnuwin32.sourceforge.net. Emacs will find them if the directory they
are installed in is on the PATH.
PNG: requires the PNG reference library 1.2 or later, which will
be named libpng13d.dll, libpng13.dll, libpng12d.dll, libpng12.dll
- or libpng.dll. LibPNG requires zlib, which should come from the same
+ or libpng.dll. LibPNG requires zlib, which should come from the same
source as you got libpng.
JPEG: requires the Independant JPEG Group's libjpeg 6b or later,
GIF: requires libungif or giflib 4.1 or later, which will be
called giflib4.dll, libungif4.dll or libungif.dll.
+ In addition, Emacs can be compiled to support SVG. This precompiled
+ distribution has not been compiled that way, since the SVG library
+ or one or more of its extensive dependencies appear to be
+ unreliable under Windows. See nt/INSTALL in the src distribution if
+ you wish to compile Emacs with SVG support.
* Uninstalling Emacs
- If you should need to uninstall Emacs, simply delete all the files and
- subdirectories from the directory where it was unpacked (Emacs does
- not install or update any files in system directories or anywhere
- else). If you ran the addpm.exe program to create the registry
- entries and the Start menu icon, then you can remove the registry
- entries using regedit. All of the settings are written under the
- Software\GNU\Emacs key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, or if you didn't have
- administrator privileges, the same key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Just
- delete the Software\GNU\Emacs key.
+ If you should need to uninstall Emacs, simply delete all the files
+ and subdirectories from the directory where it was unpacked (Emacs
+ does not install or update any files in system directories or
+ anywhere else). If you ran the addpm.exe program to create the
+ registry entries and the Start menu icon, then you can remove the
+ registry entries using regedit. All of the settings are written
+ under the Software\GNU\Emacs key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, or if you
+ didn't have administrator privileges when you installed, the same
+ key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Just delete the whole Software\GNU\Emacs
+ key.
The Start menu entry can be removed by right-clicking on the Task bar
and selecting Properties, then using the Remove option on the Start
Unpacking the distributions
If you encounter trouble trying to run Emacs, there are a number of
- possible causes. If you didn't use the versions of tar and gunzip (or
- djtarnt) on the above ftp site, it is possible that the distribution
- became corrupted while it was being unpacked. Check the following for
- indications that the distribution was not corrupted:
+ possible causes. Check the following for indications that the
+ distribution was not corrupted by the tools used to unpack it:
- * Be sure to disable the CR/LF translation or the executables will
+ * Be sure to disable CR/LF translation or the executables will
be unusable. Older versions of WinZipNT would enable this
translation by default. If you are using WinZipNT, disable it.
(I don't have WinZipNT myself, and I do not know the specific
truncated to abbrevli.elc, your distribution has been corrupted
while unpacking and Emacs will not start.
- * Users have said that some utilities (WinZip again?) don't create
- the lock subdirectory. You can create the lock directory by hand
- (it is normally empty).
-
- * Users have also reported that the gnu-win32 tar corrupts the
- executables. Use the version of tar or djtarnt on the ftp.gnu.org
- site instead.
-
If you believe you have unpacked the distributions correctly and are
still encountering problems, see the section on Further Information
below.
* Further information
If you have access to the World Wide Web, I would recommend pointing
- your favorite web browser to following the document (if you haven't
+ your favorite web browser to the following document (if you haven't
already):
- http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html
+ http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/
This document serves as an FAQ and a source for further information
about the Windows port and related software packages.
Another valuable source of information and help which should not be
overlooked is the various Usenet news groups dedicated to Emacs.
- These are particuarly good for help with general issues which aren't
+ These are particularly good for help with general issues which aren't
specific to the Windows port of Emacs. The main news groups to use
for seeking help are:
about it. First check the FAQ on the web page above to see if the bug
is already known and if there are any workarounds. Then check whether
the bug has something to do with code in your .emacs file, e.g. by
- invoking Emacs with the "-q --no-site-file" options.
-
- If you decide that it is a bug in Emacs that might be specific to the
- Windows port, send a message to the "help-emacs-windows@gnu.org"
- mailing list describing the bug, the version of Emacs that you are
- using, and the operating system that you are running on (Windows NT,
- 2000, 95, 98, etc. including service pack level if known). If the bug
- is related to subprocesses, also specify which shell you are using
- (e.g., include the values of `shell-file-name' and
- `shell-explicit-file-name' in your message).
-
- If you think the bug is not specific to the Windows port of Emacs,
- then it is better to mail the bug report to "bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org" so
- that it will be seen by the right people. If Emacs has been set up to
- send mail, you can use the command M-x report-emacs-bug to create and
- send the bug report, but in some cases there is a function to report
- bugs in a specific package; e.g. M-x gnus-bug for Gnus, M-x
- c-submit-bug-report for C/C++/Java mode, etc.
+ invoking Emacs with the "-Q" option.
+
+ If you decide that it is a bug in Emacs, use the built in bug
+ reporting facility to report it (from the menu; Help -> Send Bug Report).
+ If you have not yet configured Emacs for mail, then when you press
+ C-c C-c to send the report, it will ask you to paste the text of the
+ report into your mail client. If the bug is related to subprocesses,
+ also specify which shell you are using (e.g., include the values of
+ `shell-file-name' and `explicit-shell-file-name' in your message).
Enjoy!
HCoop / bpt / emacs.git / blobdiff