1 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
2 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5 Precompiled Distributions of
12 This directory contains source and precompiled distributions for GNU
13 Emacs on Windows NT/2000/XP and Windows 95/98/Me. This port is a
14 part of the standard GNU Emacs distribution from the Free Software
15 Foundation; the precompiled distributions are provided here for
16 convenience since the majority of Windows users are not accustomed
17 to compiling programs themselves.
19 If you have access to the World Wide Web, I would recommend pointing
20 your favorite web browser to the following document (if you haven't
23 http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html
25 The above web document is a far more complete version of this README
26 file. If you don't have access to the Web, however, then read on.
29 * IMPORTANT LEGAL REMINDER
31 If you want to redistribute any of the precompiled distributions of
32 Emacs, be careful to check the implications of the GPL. For instance,
33 if you put the emacs-22.2-bin-i386.tar.gz file from this directory on
34 an Internet site, you must arrange to distribute the source files of
35 the SAME version (i.e. ../emacs-22.2.tar.gz).
37 Making a link to our copy of the source is NOT sufficient, since we
38 might upgrade to a new version while you are still distributing the
42 * Files in this directory
44 + emacs-22.2-bin-i386.zip
45 Windows binaries of Emacs-22.2, with all lisp code and documentation
48 Download this file if you want a single installation package, and
49 are not interested in the C source code for Emacs. After
50 unpacking, you can optionally run the file bin/addpm.exe to have
51 Emacs add icons to the Start Menu.
53 If you need the C source code at a later date, it will be safe to
54 unpack the source distribution on top of this installation.
56 + emacs-22.2-barebin-i386.zip
57 Windows binaries of Emacs-22.2, without lisp code or documentation.
59 Download this file if you already have the source distribution, or
60 if you need to redump the emacs.exe executable.
62 Unpack this over the top of either the source distribution or the
63 bin distribution above. It contains the bin subdirectory and etc/DOC
64 file, plus temacs.exe and dump.bat, which are required if you want to
65 redump emacs without recompiling it.
67 + libxpm-3.5.7-w32-src.zip
68 Source code required to compile libXpm-3.5.7 on Windows. Contains
69 a basic Makefile for compiling with mingw32 and a .def file for
70 generating a DLL with the appropriate exports in addition to the
71 source code to provide the subset of functionality Emacs uses from
72 libXpm. This corresponds to the libXpm.dll in emacs-22.2-bin-i386.zip
73 and emacs-22.2-barebin-i386.zip.
76 The following are provided for users who require older versions.
78 + emacs-22.1-bin-i386.zip
79 + emacs-22-1-barebin-i386.zip
80 Windows binaries of Emacs 22.1, contents as above.
82 + emacs-21.3-bin-i386.tar.gz
83 Windows binaries of Emacs 21.3, with compiled lisp code and some
84 documentation included.
86 + emacs-21.3-leim.tar.gz
87 Compiled lisp input methods. This optional addition to Emacs-21.3
88 is required if you want to enter languages that are not directly
89 supported by your keyboard.
93 Emacs 22.2 contains support for images, however for most image formats
94 supporting libraries are required. This distribution has been tested
95 with the libraries that are distributed with GTK for Windows, and the
96 libraries found at http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. The following image
97 formats are supported:
99 PBM/PGM/PPM: Supported natively by Emacs. This format is used for
100 the black and white versions of the toolbar icons.
102 XPM: a Windows port of the XPM library corresponding to the x.org
103 release of X11R7.3 is included with the binary distribution, but
104 can be replaced by other versions with the name xpm4.dll,
105 libxpm-nox4.dll or libxpm.dll.
107 PNG: requires the PNG reference library 1.2 or later, which will
108 be named libpng13d.dll, libpng13.dll, libpng12d.dll, libpng12.dll
109 or libpng.dll. LibPNG requires zlib, which should come from the same
110 source as you got libpng.
112 JPEG: requires the Independant JPEG Group's libjpeg 6b or later,
113 which will be called jpeg62.dll, libjpeg.dll, jpeg-62.dll or jpeg.dll.
115 TIFF: requires libTIFF 3.0 or later, which will be called libtiff3.dll
118 GIF: requires libungif or giflib 4.1 or later, which will be
119 called giflib4.dll, libungif4.dll or libungif.dll.
121 * Distributions in .tar.gz and .zip format
123 Emacs is distributed primarily as source code in a large gzipped tar file
124 (*.tar.gz). Because Emacs is quite large and therefore difficult to
125 download over unreliable connections, the Windows binaries are provided
126 in several combinations, ranging from the complete source plus executables,
127 to just the minimal amount needed to run without any source, plus a
128 couple of optional packages. Formerly, we used the same .tar.gz format
129 but since there are no longer legal problems with .zip files, and the
130 latest versions of Windows support these natively, the Windows binaries
131 of Emacs are now distributed as .zip files.
133 * Distributions for non-x86 platforms
135 Distributions for non-x86 platforms are no longer supplied. Older
136 platforms supported by Windows NT no longer seem to be in demand,
137 and Emacs is yet to be ported to 64bit Windows platforms. If you are
138 willing to help port Emacs 23 to 64bit versions of Windows, your
139 contribution will be welcome on the emacs-devel mailing list.
141 * Unpacking distributions
143 Ports of GNU gzip and GNU tar for handling the source distribution file
144 format can be found in several places that distribute ports of GNU
145 programs, for example:
147 Cygwin: http://www.cygwin.com/
148 GnuWin32: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/
150 Many other popular file compression utilities for Windows are also
151 able to handle gzipped tar files.
153 Open a command prompt (MSDOS) window. Decide on a directory in which
154 to place Emacs. Move the distribution to that directory, and then
155 unpack it as follows.
157 If you have the gzipped tar version, use gunzip to uncompress the tar
158 file on the fly, and pipe the output through tar with the "xvf" flags
159 to extract the files from the tar file:
161 % gunzip -c some.tar.gz | tar xvf -
163 You may see messages from tar about not being able to change the
164 modification time on directories, and from gunzip complaining about a
165 broken pipe. These messages are harmless and you can ignore them. On
166 Windows NT, unpacking tarballs this way leaves them in compressed
167 form, taking up less space on disk. Unfortunately, on Windows 95 and
168 98, a large temporary file is created, so it is better to use the
169 djtarnt.exe program, which performs the equivalent operation in one
172 % djtarnt -x some.tar.gz
174 You may be prompted to rename or overwrite directories when using
175 djtarnt: simply type return to continue (this is harmless).
177 Zip files can be unpacked using unzip.exe from info-zip.org
178 if you do not already have other tools to do this.
182 The precompiled binaries can be unpacked using unzip.exe from info-zip.org
183 if you do not already have other tools to do this.
187 Once you have unpacked a precompiled distribution of Emacs, it should
188 have the following subdirectories:
190 bin etc info lisp site-lisp
193 * Unpacking with other tools
195 If you do use other utility programs to unpack the distribution, check
196 the following to be sure the distribution was not corrupted:
198 + Be sure to disable the CR/LF translation or the executables will
199 be unusable. Older versions of WinZip would enable this
200 translation by default when unpacking .tar files. If you are
201 using WinZip, disable it. (I don't have WinZip myself, and I do
202 not know the specific commands necessary to disable it.)
204 + Check that filenames were not truncated to 8.3. For example, there
205 should be a file lisp/abbrevlist.el; if this has been truncated to
206 abbrevli.el, your distribution has been corrupted while unpacking
207 and Emacs will not start.
209 + I've also had reports that some older "gnuwin32" port of tar
210 corrupts the executables. Use the latest version from the gnuwin32
211 site or another port of tar instead.
213 If you believe you have unpacked the distributions correctly and are
214 still encountering problems, see the section on Further Information
218 * Compiling from source
220 If you would like to compile Emacs from source, download the source
221 distribution, unpack it in the same manner as a precompiled
222 distribution, and look in the file nt/INSTALL for detailed
223 directions. You can either use the Microsoft compiler included with
224 Visual C++ 2003 or earlier, or GCC 2.95 or later with MinGW support,
225 to compile the source. The port of GCC included in Cygwin is
226 supported, but check the nt/INSTALL file if you have trouble since
227 some builds of GNU make aren't supported.
230 * Further information
232 If you have access to the World Wide Web, I would recommend pointing
233 your favorite web browser to following the document (if you haven't
236 http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/ntemacs.html
238 This document serves as an FAQ and a source for further information
239 about the Windows port and related software packages. Note that as
240 of writing, most of the information in that FAQ was for Emacs-21.3
241 and earlier versions, so some information may not be relevant to
244 In addition to the FAQ, there is a mailing list for discussing issues
245 related to the Windows port of Emacs. For information about the
246 list, see this Web page:
248 http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-emacs-windows
250 To ask questions on the mailing list, send email to
251 help-emacs-windows@gnu.org. (You don't need to subscribe for that.)
252 To subscribe to the list or unsubscribe from it, fill the form you
253 find at http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-emacs-windows as
256 Another valuable source of information and help which should not be
257 overlooked is the various Usenet news groups dedicated to Emacs.
258 These are particuarly good for help with general issues which aren't
259 specific to the Windows port of Emacs. The main news groups to use
260 for seeking help are:
265 There are also fairly regular postings and announcements of new or
266 updated Emacs packages on this group:
275 Most of this README was contributed by former maintainer Andrew Innes
279 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
281 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
282 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
283 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
284 (at your option) any later version.
286 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
287 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
288 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
289 GNU General Public License for more details.
291 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
292 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.