1 Copyright (C) 2001-2016 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, as well as older releases of Emacs for Windows.
15 Information on how to compile Emacs from sources on Windows is in
16 the files README and INSTALL in the nt/ sub-directory of the
17 top-level Emacs directory in the source distribution. If you
18 received this file as part of the Emacs source distribution, and are
19 looking for information on how to build Emacs on MS-Windows, please
20 read those 2 files and not this one.
24 The binary distribution has these top-level directories:
32 To install Emacs, simply unpack the binary package into a directory
33 of your choice. To complete the installation process, you can
34 optionally run the program addpm.exe in the bin subdirectory. This
35 will put an icon for Emacs in the Start Menu under
36 "Start -> Programs -> Gnu Emacs".
38 Some users have reported that the Start Menu item is not created for
39 them. If this happens, just create your own shortcut to runemacs.exe,
40 eg. by dragging it on to the desktop or the Start button.
42 Note that running addpm is now an optional step; Emacs is able to
43 locate all of its files without needing any information to be set in
44 the environment or the registry, although such settings will still
45 be obeyed if present. This is convenient for running Emacs on a
46 machine which disallows registry changes, or on which software
47 should not be installed. For instance, you can now run Emacs
48 directly from a CD or USB flash drive without copying or installing
49 anything on the machine itself.
51 * Prerequisites for Windows 9X
53 To run Emacs on Windows 9X (Windows 95/98/Me), you will need to have
54 the Microsoft Layer for Unicode (MSLU) installed. It can be
55 downloaded from the Microsoft site, and comes in a form of a single
56 dynamic library called UNICOWS.DLL. If this library is not
57 accessible to Emacs, it will pop up a dialog saying that it cannot
58 find the library, and will refuse to start up.
62 To run Emacs, simply select Emacs from the Start Menu, or invoke
63 runemacs.exe directly from Explorer or from a command prompt. This
64 will start Emacs in its default GUI mode, ready to use. If you have
65 never used Emacs before, you should follow the tutorial at this
66 point (select Emacs Tutorial from the Help menu), since Emacs is
67 quite different from ordinary Windows applications in many respects.
69 If you want to use Emacs in tty or character mode within a command
70 window, you can start it by typing "emacs -nw" at the command prompt.
71 (Obviously, you need to ensure that the Emacs bin subdirectory is in
72 your PATH first, or specify the path to emacs.exe.) The -nw
73 (non-windowed) mode of operation is most useful if you have a telnet
74 server on your machine, allowing you to run Emacs remotely.
78 Emacs comes with the following executable files in the bin directory.
80 + emacs.exe - The main Emacs executable. As this is designed to run
81 as both a text-mode application (emacs -nw) and as a GUI application,
82 it will pop up a command prompt window if run directly from Explorer.
84 + runemacs.exe - A wrapper for running Emacs as a GUI application
85 without popping up a command prompt window. If you create a
86 desktop shortcut for invoking Emacs, make it point to this
87 executable, not to emacs.exe.
89 + emacsclient.exe - A command-line client program that can
90 communicate with a running Emacs process. See the `Emacs Server'
91 node of the Emacs manual.
93 + emacsclientw.exe - A version of emacsclient that does not open
94 a command-line window.
96 + addpm.exe - A basic installer that creates Start Menu icons for Emacs.
97 Running this is optional.
99 + ctags.exe, etags.exe - Tools for generating tag files. See the
100 `Tags' node of the Emacs manual.
102 + ebrowse.exe - A tool for generating C++ browse information. See the
105 Several helper programs are in a version-specific subdirectory of
106 the libexec directory:
108 + cmdproxy.exe - Used internally by Emacs to work around problems with
109 the native shells in various versions of Windows.
111 + ddeclient.exe - A tool for interacting with DDE servers. To be
112 invoked as "ddeclient SERVER [TOPIC]", where SERVER is the DDE
113 server name, and sends each line of its standard input to the DDE
114 server using the DdeClientTransaction API. This program is
115 supposed to be invoked via the 'call-process-region' Emacs
118 + hexl.exe - A tool for producing hex dumps of binary files. See the
119 `Editing Binary Files' node of the Emacs manual.
121 + movemail.exe - A helper application for safely moving mail from
122 a mail spool or POP server to a local user mailbox. See the
123 `Movemail' node of the Emacs manual.
125 + profile.exe - A helper program that generates periodic events for
126 profiling Emacs Lisp code.
128 + update-game-score.exe - A utility for updating the score files of
133 Emacs has built in support for XBM and PPM/PGM/PBM images, and the
134 libXpm library is bundled, providing XPM support (required for color
135 toolbar icons and splash screen). Source for libXpm should be available
136 from the same place from which you got this binary distribution.
138 Emacs can also support some other image formats with appropriate
139 libraries. These libraries are all available on the following sites:
141 1. http://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/
142 -- up-to-date builds, self-contained archives, only for 32-bit Emacs
143 2. Libraries from the MSYS2 project on alpha.gnu.org:
144 http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/.
145 3. The MSYS2 project -- for 64-bit Emacs:
146 http://msys2.github.io/
147 https://sourceforge.net/projects/msys2/files/REPOS/MINGW/x86_64/
148 4. GnuWin32 project -- very old 32-bit builds, not recommended
150 The libraries to download are mentioned below. Some libraries
151 depend on others that need to be downloaded separately from the same
152 site; please consult the download instructions on each site for the
153 details. In general, the ezwinports site mentioned above has all
154 the dependencies bundled in the same zip archive, so installing from
155 there is the easiest. For MSYS2 builds, we recommend that you
156 install and use the 'pacman' utility (available from the MSYS2
157 site), see the instructions below -- it will automatically install
158 all the dependencies.
160 Emacs will find these libraries if the directory they are installed
161 in is on the PATH or in the same directory where you have emacs.exe.
162 Here are some specific comments about each image type:
164 PNG: requires the PNG reference library 1.4 or later, which will
165 be named libpngNN.dll or libpngNN-NN.dll. LibPNG requires zlib,
166 which should come from the same source as you got libpng.
167 Starting with Emacs 23.3, the precompiled Emacs binaries are
168 built with libpng 1.4.x and later, and are incompatible with
169 earlier versions of libpng DLLs. So if you have libpng 1.2.x,
170 the PNG support will not work, and you will have to download
173 JPEG: requires the Independent JPEG Group's libjpeg 6b or later,
174 which will be called jpeg62.dll, libjpeg.dll, jpeg-62.dll or jpeg.dll.
176 TIFF: requires libTIFF 3.0 or later, which will be called libtiffN.dll
177 or libtiff-N.dll or libtiff.dll.
179 GIF: requires libungif or giflib 4.1 or later, which will be
180 called libgif-6.dll, giflib4.dll, libungif4.dll or libungif.dll.
182 SVG: requires librsvg 2.x whose DLL will be called
183 librsvg-2-2.dll. SVG also requires several dependency DLLs,
184 such as Pango, Cairo, and Glib, all of them found on the
185 above-mentioned sites. If you download from the ezwinports
186 site, you need only librsvg-2.nn.mm-x-w32-bin.zip, it comes with
187 all the other dependencies bundled.
189 If you have image support DLLs under different names, customize the
190 value of `dynamic-library-alist'.
194 GnuTLS provides SSL/TLS network support for Emacs (https, imaps and
197 In order to support GnuTLS at runtime, Emacs must be able to find
198 the relevant DLLs during startup; failure to do so is not an error,
199 but GnuTLS won't be available to the running session.
201 You can get pre-built binaries (including any dependency DLLs) at
202 http://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/ and on
203 http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/.
207 libxml2 provides HTML parsing support for Emacs, which is necessary
208 to use the built-in eww browser.
210 In order to support libxml2 at runtime, a libxml2-enabled Emacs must
211 be able to find the relevant DLLs during startup; failure to do so
212 is not an error, but libxml2 features won't be available to the
215 You can get pre-built binaries (including any required DLL and the
216 header files) at http://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/ and
217 http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/.
222 zlib provides support for decompressing text, which is necessary for
223 the zlib-decompress-region primitive.
225 Prebuilt binaries of zlib DLL (for 32-bit builds of Emacs) are
226 available from the ezwinports site and on alpha.gnu; see above for
227 the URLs. For the 64-bit DLL, see the instructions below for
228 installing from MSYS2 site.
230 (This library is also a prerequisite for several image libraries, so
231 you may already have it; look for zlib1.dll or libz-1.dll.)
233 * Installing 64-bit optional libraries from the MSYS2 site
235 We recommend that you use the 'pacman' utility to download the
236 libraries you need and all of their dependencies. If you don't have
237 'pacman' installed, proceed as follows:
239 . Install the MSYS2 64-bit (x86_64) installer, named
240 msys2-x86_64-YYYYMMDD.exe (where "YYYYMMDD" is the release date,
241 like 20160205) from http://msys2.github.io/.
243 . Run the installer, select the installation directory, make sure
244 "Run MSYS2 now" checkbox is checked, and click "Finish". A Bash
247 . Type into the Bash window the following command:
251 When asked whether to proceed with installation, type Y.
253 To install the optional libraries, start the MSYS2 Bash window and
254 type the following command:
258 where PACKAGES is the list of packages you want to install. The
259 full list is as follows:
261 mingw-w64-x86_64-xpm-nox mingw-w64-x86_64-libtiff mingw-w64-x86_64-giflib
262 mingw-w64-x86_64-libpng mingw-w64-x86_64-libjpeg-turbo
263 mingw-w64-x86_64-librsvg mingw-w64-x86_64-libxml2 mingw-w64-x86_64-gnutls
264 mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib
266 You can type any subset of this list. Once again, when asked
267 whether to proceed with installation, answer Y.
269 Alternatively, you could install the packages manually from this
272 https://sourceforge.net/projects/msys2/files/REPOS/MINGW/x86_64/
274 However, the packages there are not self-contained, so you will need
275 to download all their dependencies as well.
277 After the installation, if you will be installing Emacs in a
278 directory different from where the DLLs were installed, we recommend
279 to add the directory with DLLs to your PATH, so that Emacs will be
280 able to find those DLLs.
284 If you should need to uninstall Emacs, simply delete all the files
285 and subdirectories from the directory where it was unpacked (Emacs
286 does not install or update any files in system directories or
287 anywhere else). If you ran the addpm.exe program to create the
288 registry entries and the Start menu icon, then you can remove the
289 registry entries using regedit. All of the settings are written
290 under the Software\GNU\Emacs key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, or if you
291 didn't have administrator privileges when you installed, the same
292 key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Just delete the whole Software\GNU\Emacs
295 The Start menu entry can be removed by right-clicking on the Taskbar
296 and selecting Properties, then using the Remove option on the Start
297 Menu Programs page. (If you installed under an account with
298 administrator privileges, then you need to click the Advanced button
299 and look for the Gnu Emacs menu item under All Users.)
303 Unpacking the distributions
305 If you encounter trouble trying to run Emacs, there are a number of
306 possible causes. Check the following for indications that the
307 distribution was not corrupted by the tools used to unpack it:
309 * Be sure to disable CR/LF translation or the executables will
310 be unusable. Older versions of WinZipNT would enable this
311 translation by default. If you are using WinZipNT, disable it.
312 (I don't have WinZipNT myself, and I do not know the specific
313 commands necessary to disable it.)
315 * Check that filenames were not truncated to 8.3. For example,
316 there should be a file lisp\abbrevlist.elc; if this has been
317 truncated to abbrevli.elc, your distribution has been corrupted
318 while unpacking and Emacs will not start.
320 * On Windows 9X, make sure you have the UNICOWS.DLL library either
321 in the same directory where you have emacs.exe or in the
322 directory where system-wide DLLs are kept.
324 If you believe you have unpacked the distributions correctly and are
325 still encountering problems, see the section on Further Information
330 Some virus scanners interfere with Emacs' use of subprocesses. If you
331 are unable to use subprocesses and you use Dr. Solomon's WinGuard or
332 McAfee's Vshield, turn off "Scan all files" (WinGuard) or "boot sector
333 scanning" (McAfee exclusion properties).
335 * Further information
337 The Emacs User manual describes Windows-specific issues in the
338 appendix named "Emacs and Microsoft Windows/MS-DOS". You can read
339 it in Emacs by typing
341 C-h r g Microsoft Windows RET
343 This appendix is also available (as part of the entire manual) at
345 http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/emacs.html#Microsoft-Windows
347 In addition to the manual, there is a mailing list for discussing
348 issues related to the Windows port of Emacs. For information about
349 the list, see this Web page:
351 http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-emacs-windows
353 To ask questions on the mailing list, send email to
354 help-emacs-windows@gnu.org. (You don't need to subscribe for that.)
355 To subscribe to the list or unsubscribe from it, fill the form you
356 find at http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-emacs-windows as
359 Another valuable source of information and help which should not be
360 overlooked is the various Usenet news groups dedicated to Emacs.
361 These are particularly good for help with general issues which aren't
362 specific to the Windows port of Emacs. The main news groups to use
363 for seeking help are:
368 There are also fairly regular postings and announcements of new or
369 updated Emacs packages on this group:
375 If you encounter a bug in this port of Emacs, we would like to hear
376 about it. First check the FAQ on the web page above to see if the bug
377 is already known and if there are any workarounds. Then check whether
378 the bug has something to do with code in your .emacs file, e.g. by
379 invoking Emacs with the "-Q" option.
381 If you decide that it is a bug in Emacs, use the built in bug
382 reporting facility to report it (from the menu; Help -> Send Bug Report).
383 If you have not yet configured Emacs for mail, then when you press
384 C-c C-c to send the report, it will ask you to paste the text of the
385 report into your mail client. If the bug is related to subprocesses,
386 also specify which shell you are using (e.g., include the values of
387 `shell-file-name' and `explicit-shell-file-name' in your message).
392 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
394 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
395 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
396 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
397 (at your option) any later version.
399 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
400 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
401 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
402 GNU General Public License for more details.
404 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
405 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.