1 *os_win32.txt* For Vim version 5.8. Last change: 2000 Apr 18
4 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by George Reilly
7 *win32* *Win32* *MS-Windows*
8 This file documents the idiosyncrasies of the Win32 version of Vim.
10 The Win32 version of Vim works on both Windows NT and Windows 95. There are
11 both console and GUI versions. There is GUI version for use in the Win32s
12 subsystem in Windows 3.1[1]. You can also use the 32-bit DOS version of Vim
13 instead. See |os_msdos.txt|.
15 1. Known problems |win32-problems|
16 2. Term option |win32-term|
17 3. Restore screen contents |win32-restore|
18 4. Using the mouse |win32-mouse|
19 5. Running under Windows 3.1 |win32-win3.1|
20 6. Win32 mini FAQ |win32-faq|
22 Additionally, there are a number of common Win32 and DOS items:
23 File locations |dos-locations|
24 Using backslashes |dos-backslash|
25 Standard mappings |dos-standard-mappings|
26 Screen output and colors |dos-colors|
27 File formats |dos-file-formats|
29 Interrupting |dos-CTRL-Break|
30 Temp files |dos-temp-files|
31 Shell option default |dos-shell|
36 The Win32 version was written by George V. Reilly <george@reilly.org>.
37 The original Windows NT port was done by Roger Knobbe <RogerK@wonderware.com>.
38 The GUI version was made by George V. Reilly and Robert Webb.
40 For compiling see "src/INSTALL.pc". *win32-compiling*
42 ==============================================================================
43 1. Known problems *windows95* *win32-problems*
45 There are a few known problems with running in a console on Windows 95. As
46 far as we know, this is the same in Windows 98.
48 Comments from somebody working at Microsoft: "Win95 console support has always
49 been and will always be flaky".
50 1. Dead key support doesn't work.
51 2. Resizing the window with ":set columns=nn lines=nn" works, but executing
52 external commands MAY CAUSE THE SYSTEM TO HANG OR CRASH.
53 3. Screen updating is slow, unless you change 'columns' or 'lines' to a
54 non-DOS value. But then the second problem applies!
56 If this bothers you, use the 32 bit MS-DOS version or the Win32 GUI version.
58 When doing file name completion, Vim also finds matches for the short file
59 name. But Vim will still find and use the corresponding long file name. For
60 example, if you have the long file name "this_is_a_test" with the short file
61 name "this_i~1", the command ":e *1" will start editing "this_is_a_test".
63 ==============================================================================
64 2. Term option *win32-term*
66 The only kind of terminal type that the Win32 version of Vim understands is
67 "win32", which is built-in. If you set 'term' to anything else, you will
68 probably get very strange behavior from Vim. Therefore Vim does not obtain
69 the default value of 'term' from the environment variable "TERM".
71 ==============================================================================
72 3. Restore screen contents *win32-restore*
74 When 'restorescreen' is set (which is the default), Vim will restore the
75 original contents of the console when exiting or when executing external
76 commands. If you don't want this, use ":set nors". |'restorescreen'|
78 ==============================================================================
79 4. Using the mouse *win32-mouse*
81 The Win32 version of Vim supports using the mouse. If you have a two-button
82 mouse, the middle button can be emulated by pressing both left and right
83 buttons simultaneously - but note that in the Win32 GUI, if you have the right
84 mouse button pop-up menu enabled (see 'mouse'), you should err on the side of
85 pressing the left button first. |mouse-using|
87 When the mouse doesn't work, try disabling the "Quick Edit Mode" feature of
90 ==============================================================================
91 5. Running under Windows 3.1 *win32-win3.1*
93 *win32s* *windows-3.1*
94 There is a special version of Gvim that runs under Windows 3.1 and 3.11. You
95 need the gvim.exe that was compiled with Visual C++ 4.1.
97 To run the Win32 version under Windows 3.1, you need to install Win32s. You
98 might have it already from another Win32 application which you have installed.
99 If Vim doesn't seem to be running properly, get the latest version: 1.30c.
102 http://support.microsoft.com/download/support/mslfiles/pw1118.exe
104 (hopefully Microsoft didn't move it again!).
106 The reason for having two versions of gvim.exe is that the Win32s version was
107 compiled with VC++ 4.1. This is the last version of VC++ that supports Win32s
108 programs. VC++ 5.0 is better, so that one was used for the Win32 version.
109 Apart from that, there is no difference between the programs. If you are in a
110 mixed environment, you can use the gvim.exe for Win32s on both.
112 The Win32s version works the same way as the Win32 version under 95/NT. When
113 running under Win32s the following differences apply:
114 - You cannot use long file names, because Windows 3.1 doesn't support them!
115 - When executing an external command, it doesn't return an exit code. After
116 doing ":make" you have to do ":cn" yourself.
118 ==============================================================================
119 6. Win32 mini FAQ *win32-faq*
121 Q. Why does the Win32 version of Vim update the screen so slowly on Windows 95?
122 A. The support for Win32 console mode applications is very buggy in Win95.
123 For some unknown reason, the screen updates very slowly when Vim is run at
124 one of the standard resolutions (80x25, 80x43, or 80x50) and the 16-bit DOS
125 version updates the screen much more quickly than the Win32 version.
126 However, if the screen is set to some other resolution, such as by ":set
127 columns=100" or ":set lines=40", screen updating becomes about as fast as
128 it is with the 16-bit version.
130 WARNING: Changing 'columns' may make Windows 95 crash while updating the
131 window (complaints --> Microsoft). Since this mostly works, this has not
132 been disabled, but be careful with changing 'columns'.
134 Changing the screen resolution makes updates faster, but it brings
135 additional problems. External commands (e.g., ":!dir") can cause Vim to
136 freeze when the screen is set to a non-standard resolution, particularly
137 when 'columns' is not equal to 80. It is not possible for Vim to reliably
138 set the screen resolution back to the value it had upon startup before
139 running external commands, so if you change the number of 'lines' or
140 'columns', be very, very careful. In fact, Vim will not allow you to
141 execute external commands when 'columns' is not equal to 80, because it is
142 so likely to freeze up afterwards.
144 None of the above applies on Windows NT. Screen updates are fast, no
145 matter how many 'lines' or 'columns' the window has, and external commands
146 do not cause Vim to freeze.
148 Q. So if the Win32 version updates the screen so slowly on Windows 95 and the
149 16-bit DOS version updates the screen quickly, why would I want to run the
151 A. Firstly, the Win32 version isn't that slow, especially when the screen is
152 set to some non-standard number of 'lines' or 'columns'. Secondly, the
153 16-bit DOS version has some severe limitations: It can't do big changes and
154 it doesn't know about long file names. The Win32 version doesn't have these
155 limitations and it's faster overall (the same is true for the 32-bit DJGPP
156 DOS version of Vim). The Win32 version is smarter about handling the
157 screen, the mouse, and the keyboard than the DJGPP version is.
159 Q. And what about the 16-bit DOS version versus the Win32 version on NT?
160 A. There are no good reasons to run the 16-bit DOS version on NT. The Win32
161 version updates the screen just as fast as the 16-bit version does when
162 running on NT. All of the above disadvantages apply. Finally, DOS
163 applications can take a long time to start up and will run more slowly. On
164 non-Intel NT platforms, the DOS version is almost unusably slow, because it
165 runs on top of an 80x86 emulator.
167 Q. How do I change the font?
168 A. In the GUI version, you can use the 'guifont' option.
169 In the console version, you need to set the font of the console itself.
170 You cannot do this from within Vim.
172 Q. When I change the size of the console window with ':set lines=xx' or
173 similar, the font changes! (Win95)
174 A. You have the console font set to 'Auto' in Vim's (or your MS-DOS prompt's)
175 properties. This makes W95 guess (badly!) what font is best. Set an explicit
178 Q. Why can't I paste into Vim when running Windows 95?
179 A. In the properties dialog box for the MS-DOS window, go to "MS-DOS
180 Prompt/Misc/Fast pasting" and make sure that it is NOT checked. You should
181 also do ":set paste" in Vim to avoid unexpected effects. |'paste'|
183 Q. How do I type dead keys on Windows 95, in the console version?
184 (A dead key is an accent key, such as acute, grave, or umlaut, that doesn't
185 produce a character by itself, but when followed by another key, produces
186 an accented character, such as a-acute, e-grave, u-umlaut, n-tilde, and so
187 on. Very useful for most European languages. English-language keyboard
188 layouts don't use dead keys, as far as we know.)
189 A. You don't. The console mode input routines simply do not work correctly in
190 Windows 95, and I have not been able to work around them. In the words
191 of a senior developer at Microsoft:
192 Win95 console support has always been and will always be flaky.
194 The flakiness is unavoidable because we are stuck between the world of
195 MS-DOS keyboard TSRs like KEYB (which wants to cook the data;
196 important for international) and the world of Win32.
198 So keys that don't "exist" in MS-DOS land (like dead keys) have a
199 very tenuous existence in Win32 console land. Keys that act
200 differently between MS-DOS land and Win32 console land (like
201 capslock) will act flaky.
203 Don't even _mention_ the problems with multiple language keyboard
206 You may be able to fashion some sort of workaround with the digraphs
207 mechanism. |digraphs|
209 The best solution is to use the Win32 GUI version gvim.exe. Alternatively,
210 you can try one of the DOS versions of Vim where dead keys reportedly do
213 Q. How do I type dead keys on Windows NT?
214 A. Dead keys work on NT 3.51. Just type them as you would in any other
216 On NT 4.0, you need to make sure that the default locale (set in the
217 Keyboard part of the Control Panel) is the same as the currently active
218 locale. Otherwise the NT code will get confused and crash! This is a NT
219 4.0 problem, not really a Vim problem.
221 Q. I'm using Vim to edit a symbolically linked file on a Unix NFS file server.
222 When I write the file, Vim does not "write through" the symlink. Instead,
223 it deletes the symbolic link and creates a new file in its place. Why?
224 A. On Unix, Vim is prepared for links (symbolic or hard). A backup copy of
225 the original file is made and then the original file is overwritten. This
226 assures that all properties of the file remain the same. On non-Unix
227 systems, the original file is renamed and a new file is written. Only the
228 protection bits are set like the original file. However, this doesn't work
229 properly when working on an NFS-mounted file system where links and other
230 things exist. The only way to fix this in the current version is not
231 making a backup file, by ":set nobackup nowritebackup" |'writebackup'|
233 Q. How do I get to see the output of ":make" while it's running?
234 A. Basically what you need is to put a tee program that will copy its input
235 (the output from make) to both stdout and to the errorfile. You can find a
236 copy of tee (and a number of other GNU tools tools) at
237 ftp://ftp.cc.utexas.edu/microlib/nt/gnu Alternatively, try the more recent
238 Cygnus version of the GNU tools at http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32
239 You might also find useful stuff at Chris Szurgot's Virtual Unix site,
240 http://www.itribe.net/virtunix And Microsoft has some Unix-style tools at
241 http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/tools/Maintnce.htm
242 When you do get a copy of tee, you'll need to add
243 > set shellpipe=\|\ tee
246 Q. I'm storing files on a remote machine that works with VisionFS, and files
248 A. VisionFS can't handle certain dot (.) three letter extension file names.
249 SCO declares this behavior required for backwards compatibility with 16bit
250 DOS/Windows environments. The two commands below demonstrate the behavior:
252 > echo Hello > file.bat~
255 The result is that the "dir" command updates the "file.bat~" file, instead
256 of creating a new "file.bat" file. This same behavior is exhibited in Vim
257 when editing an existing file named "foo.bat" because the default behavior
258 of Vim is to create a temporary file with a '~' character appended to the
259 name. When the file is written, it winds up being deleted.
261 Solution: Add this command to your _vimrc file:
262 > set backupext=.temporary
264 Q. How do I change the blink rate of the cursor?
265 A. You can't! This is a limitation of the NT console. NT 5.0 is reported to
266 be able to set the blink rate for all console windows at the same time.
268 Q. How can I run an external command or program asynchronously?
269 A. When using :! to run an external command, you can run it with "start":
270 > :!start winfile.exe<CR>
271 Using "start" stops Vim switching to another screen, opening a new console,
272 or waiting for the program to complete; it indicates that you are running a
273 program that does not effect the files you are editing. Programs begun
274 with :!start do not get passed Vim's open file handles, which means they do
275 not have to be closed before Vim.
277 Q. I'm using Win32s, and when I try to run an external command like "make",
278 Vim doesn't wait for it to finish! Help!
279 A. The problem is that a 32-bit application (Vim) can't get notification from
280 Windows that a 16-bit application (your DOS session) has finished. Vim
281 includes a work-around for this, but you must set up your DOS commands to
282 run in a window, not full-screen. Unfortunately the default when you
283 install Windows is full-screen. To change this:
284 1) Start PIF editor (in the Main program group)
285 2) Open the file "_DEFAULT.PIF" in your Windows directory.
286 3) Changes the display option from "Full Screen" to "Windowed".
289 To test, start Vim and type
291 You should see a DOS box window appear briefly with the directory listing.
293 Q. I use Vim under Win32s and NT. In NT, I can define the console to default to
294 50 lines, so that I get a 80x50 shell when I ':sh'. Can I do the same in
295 W3.1x, or am I stuck with 80x25?
296 A. Edit SYSTEM.INI and add 'ScreenLines=50' to the [NonWindowsApp] section. DOS
297 prompts and external DOS commands will now run in a 50-line window.
299 vim:ts=8:sw=8:tw=78:fo=tcq2: