1 Copyright (C) 2001-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2 See the end of the file for license conditions.
6 This README.W32 file describes how to set up and run a precompiled
7 distribution of GNU Emacs for Windows. You can find the precompiled
8 distribution on the ftp.gnu.org server and its mirrors:
10 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/
12 This server contains other distributions, including the full Emacs
13 source distribution and a barebin distribution which can be installed
14 over it, as well as older releases of Emacs for Windows.
16 Information on how to compile Emacs from sources on Windows is in
17 the files README and INSTALL in this directory. If you received
18 this file as part of the Emacs source distribution, please read
19 those 2 files and not this one.
21 Answers to frequently asked questions, and further information about
22 this port of GNU Emacs and related software packages can be found via
25 http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/
29 Along with this file should be six subdirectories (bin, etc, info,
30 lisp, leim, site-lisp). If you have downloaded the barebin
31 distribution, then it will contain only the bin directory and the
32 built in documentation in etc/DOC-X, the rest of the subdirectories
33 are in the src distribution, which the barebin distribution is
34 designed to be used with.
38 To install Emacs, simply unpack all the files into a directory of
39 your choice, but note that you might encounter minor problems if
40 there is a space anywhere in the directory name. To complete the
41 installation process, you can optionally run the program addpm.exe
42 in the bin subdirectory. This will put an icon for Emacs in the
43 Start Menu under "Start -> Programs -> Gnu Emacs".
45 Some users have reported that the Start Menu item is not created for
46 them. If this happens, just create your own shortcut to runemacs.exe,
47 eg. by dragging it on to the desktop or the Start button.
49 Note that running addpm is now an optional step; Emacs is able to
50 locate all of its files without needing any information to be set in
51 the environment or the registry, although such settings will still
52 be obeyed if present. This is convenient for running Emacs on a
53 machine which disallows registry changes, or on which software
54 should not be installed. For instance, you can now run Emacs
55 directly from a CD or USB flash drive without copying or installing
56 anything on the machine itself.
58 * Prerequisites for Windows 9X
60 To run Emacs on Windows 9X (Windows 95/98/Me), you will need to have
61 the Microsoft Layer for Unicode (MSLU) installed. It can be
62 downloaded from the Microsoft site, and comes in a form of a single
63 dynamic library called UNICOWS.DLL. If this library is not
64 accessible to Emacs, it will pop up a dialog saying that it cannot
65 find the library, and will refuse to start up a GUI session.
66 (However, it is still possible to use Emacs in text mode, even
67 without UNICOWS.DLL, by invoking it as "emacs -nw", see below.)
71 To run Emacs, simply select Emacs from the Start Menu, or invoke
72 runemacs.exe directly from Explorer or from a command prompt. This
73 will start Emacs in its default GUI mode, ready to use. If you have
74 never used Emacs before, you should follow the tutorial at this
75 point (select Emacs Tutorial from the Help menu), since Emacs is
76 quite different from ordinary Windows applications in many respects.
78 If you want to use Emacs in tty or character mode within a command
79 window, you can start it by typing "emacs -nw" at the command prompt.
80 (Obviously, you need to ensure that the Emacs bin subdirectory is in
81 your PATH first, or specify the path to emacs.exe.) The -nw
82 (non-windowed) mode of operation is most useful if you have a telnet
83 server on your machine, allowing you to run Emacs remotely.
87 Emacs comes with the following executable files in the bin directory.
89 + emacs.exe - The main Emacs executable. As this is designed to run
90 as both a text-mode application (emacs -nw) and as a GUI application,
91 it will pop up a command prompt window if run directly from Explorer.
93 + runemacs.exe - A wrapper for running Emacs as a GUI application
94 without popping up a command prompt window. If you create a
95 desktop shortcut for invoking Emacs, make it point to this
96 executable, not to emacs.exe.
98 + emacsclient.exe - A command-line client program that can
99 communicate with a running Emacs process. See the `Emacs Server'
100 node of the Emacs manual.
102 + emacsclientw.exe - A version of emacsclient that does not open
103 a command-line window.
105 + addpm.exe - A basic installer that creates Start Menu icons for Emacs.
106 Running this is optional.
108 + cmdproxy.exe - Used internally by Emacs to work around problems with
109 the native shells in various versions of Windows.
111 + ctags.exe, etags.exe - Tools for generating tag files. See the
112 `Tags' node of the Emacs manual.
114 + ebrowse.exe - A tool for generating C++ browse information. See the
117 + ddeclient.exe - A tool for interacting with DDE servers.
119 + hexl.exe - A tool for producing hex dumps of binary files. See the
120 `Editing Binary Files' node of the Emacs manual.
122 + movemail.exe - A helper application for safely moving mail from
123 a mail spool or POP server to a local user mailbox. See the
124 `Movemail' node of the Emacs manual.
128 Emacs has built in support for XBM and PPM/PGM/PBM images, and the
129 libXpm library is bundled, providing XPM support (required for color
130 toolbar icons and splash screen). Source for libXpm should be available
131 on the same place as you got this binary distribution from. The version
132 of libXpm bundled with this version of Emacs is 3.5.7, based on x.org's
133 libXpm library from X11R7.3.
135 Emacs can also support some other image formats with appropriate
136 libraries. These libraries are all available as part of GTK
137 download for Windows (http://www.gtk.org/download/win32.php), or
138 from the GnuWin32 project. Emacs will find them if the directory
139 they are installed in is on the PATH.
141 PNG: requires the PNG reference library 1.4 or later, which will
142 be named libpng14.dll or libpng14-14.dll. LibPNG requires zlib,
143 which should come from the same source as you got libpng.
144 Starting with Emacs 23.3, the precompiled Emacs binaries are
145 built with libpng 1.4.x and later, and are incompatible with
146 earlier versions of libpng DLLs. So if you have libpng 1.2.x,
147 the PNG support will not work, and you will have to download
150 JPEG: requires the Independent JPEG Group's libjpeg 6b or later,
151 which will be called jpeg62.dll, libjpeg.dll, jpeg-62.dll or jpeg.dll.
153 TIFF: requires libTIFF 3.0 or later, which will be called libtiff3.dll
156 GIF: requires libungif or giflib 4.1 or later, which will be
157 called giflib4.dll, libungif4.dll or libungif.dll.
159 If you have image support DLLs under different names, customize the
160 value of `dynamic-library-alist'.
162 In addition, Emacs can be compiled to support SVG. This precompiled
163 distribution has not been compiled that way, since the SVG library
164 or one or more of its extensive dependencies appear to be
165 unreliable under Windows. See nt/INSTALL in the src distribution if
166 you wish to compile Emacs with SVG support.
170 In order to support GnuTLS at runtime, Emacs must be able to find
171 the relevant DLLs during startup; failure to do so is not an error,
172 but GnuTLS won't be available to the running session.
174 You can get pre-built binaries (including any required DLL and the
175 header files) at http://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/.
179 If you should need to uninstall Emacs, simply delete all the files
180 and subdirectories from the directory where it was unpacked (Emacs
181 does not install or update any files in system directories or
182 anywhere else). If you ran the addpm.exe program to create the
183 registry entries and the Start menu icon, then you can remove the
184 registry entries using regedit. All of the settings are written
185 under the Software\GNU\Emacs key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, or if you
186 didn't have administrator privileges when you installed, the same
187 key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Just delete the whole Software\GNU\Emacs
190 The Start menu entry can be removed by right-clicking on the Task bar
191 and selecting Properties, then using the Remove option on the Start
192 Menu Programs page. (If you installed under an account with
193 administrator privileges, then you need to click the Advanced button
194 and look for the Gnu Emacs menu item under All Users.)
198 Unpacking the distributions
200 If you encounter trouble trying to run Emacs, there are a number of
201 possible causes. Check the following for indications that the
202 distribution was not corrupted by the tools used to unpack it:
204 * Be sure to disable CR/LF translation or the executables will
205 be unusable. Older versions of WinZipNT would enable this
206 translation by default. If you are using WinZipNT, disable it.
207 (I don't have WinZipNT myself, and I do not know the specific
208 commands necessary to disable it.)
210 * Check that filenames were not truncated to 8.3. For example,
211 there should be a file lisp\abbrevlist.elc; if this has been
212 truncated to abbrevli.elc, your distribution has been corrupted
213 while unpacking and Emacs will not start.
215 * On Windows 9X, make sure you have the UNICOWS.DLL library either
216 in the same directory where you have emacs.exe or in the
217 directory where system-wide DLLs are kept.
219 If you believe you have unpacked the distributions correctly and are
220 still encountering problems, see the section on Further Information
225 Some virus scanners interfere with Emacs' use of subprocesses. If you
226 are unable to use subprocesses and you use Dr. Solomon's WinGuard or
227 McAfee's Vshield, turn off "Scan all files" (WinGuard) or "boot sector
228 scanning" (McAfee exclusion properties).
230 * Further information
232 If you have access to the World Wide Web, I would recommend pointing
233 your favorite web browser to the following document (if you haven't
236 http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/
238 This document serves as an FAQ and a source for further information
239 about the Windows port and related software packages.
241 In addition to the FAQ, there is a mailing list for discussing issues
242 related to the Windows port of Emacs. For information about the
243 list, see this Web page:
245 http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-emacs-windows
247 To ask questions on the mailing list, send email to
248 help-emacs-windows@gnu.org. (You don't need to subscribe for that.)
249 To subscribe to the list or unsubscribe from it, fill the form you
250 find at http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-emacs-windows as
253 Another valuable source of information and help which should not be
254 overlooked is the various Usenet news groups dedicated to Emacs.
255 These are particularly good for help with general issues which aren't
256 specific to the Windows port of Emacs. The main news groups to use
257 for seeking help are:
262 There are also fairly regular postings and announcements of new or
263 updated Emacs packages on this group:
269 If you encounter a bug in this port of Emacs, we would like to hear
270 about it. First check the FAQ on the web page above to see if the bug
271 is already known and if there are any workarounds. Then check whether
272 the bug has something to do with code in your .emacs file, e.g. by
273 invoking Emacs with the "-Q" option.
275 If you decide that it is a bug in Emacs, use the built in bug
276 reporting facility to report it (from the menu; Help -> Send Bug Report).
277 If you have not yet configured Emacs for mail, then when you press
278 C-c C-c to send the report, it will ask you to paste the text of the
279 report into your mail client. If the bug is related to subprocesses,
280 also specify which shell you are using (e.g., include the values of
281 `shell-file-name' and `explicit-shell-file-name' in your message).
286 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
288 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
289 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
290 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
291 (at your option) any later version.
293 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
294 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
295 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
296 GNU General Public License for more details.
298 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
299 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.