1 Copyright (C) 2001-2013 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.
23 Along with this file should be six subdirectories (bin, etc, info,
24 lisp, leim, site-lisp). If you have downloaded the barebin
25 distribution, then it will contain only the bin directory and the
26 built in documentation in etc/DOC, the rest of the subdirectories
27 are in the src distribution, which the barebin distribution is
28 designed to be used with.
32 To install Emacs, simply unpack all the files into a directory of
33 your choice, but note that you might encounter minor problems if
34 there is a space anywhere in the directory name. To complete the
35 installation process, you can optionally run the program addpm.exe
36 in the bin subdirectory. This will put an icon for Emacs in the
37 Start Menu under "Start -> Programs -> Gnu Emacs".
39 Some users have reported that the Start Menu item is not created for
40 them. If this happens, just create your own shortcut to runemacs.exe,
41 eg. by dragging it on to the desktop or the Start button.
43 Note that running addpm is now an optional step; Emacs is able to
44 locate all of its files without needing any information to be set in
45 the environment or the registry, although such settings will still
46 be obeyed if present. This is convenient for running Emacs on a
47 machine which disallows registry changes, or on which software
48 should not be installed. For instance, you can now run Emacs
49 directly from a CD or USB flash drive without copying or installing
50 anything on the machine itself.
52 * Prerequisites for Windows 9X
54 To run Emacs on Windows 9X (Windows 95/98/Me), you will need to have
55 the Microsoft Layer for Unicode (MSLU) installed. It can be
56 downloaded from the Microsoft site, and comes in a form of a single
57 dynamic library called UNICOWS.DLL. If this library is not
58 accessible to Emacs, it will pop up a dialog saying that it cannot
59 find the library, and will refuse to start up a GUI session.
60 (However, it is still possible to use Emacs in text mode, even
61 without UNICOWS.DLL, by invoking it as "emacs -nw", see below.)
65 To run Emacs, simply select Emacs from the Start Menu, or invoke
66 runemacs.exe directly from Explorer or from a command prompt. This
67 will start Emacs in its default GUI mode, ready to use. If you have
68 never used Emacs before, you should follow the tutorial at this
69 point (select Emacs Tutorial from the Help menu), since Emacs is
70 quite different from ordinary Windows applications in many respects.
72 If you want to use Emacs in tty or character mode within a command
73 window, you can start it by typing "emacs -nw" at the command prompt.
74 (Obviously, you need to ensure that the Emacs bin subdirectory is in
75 your PATH first, or specify the path to emacs.exe.) The -nw
76 (non-windowed) mode of operation is most useful if you have a telnet
77 server on your machine, allowing you to run Emacs remotely.
81 Emacs comes with the following executable files in the bin directory.
83 + emacs.exe - The main Emacs executable. As this is designed to run
84 as both a text-mode application (emacs -nw) and as a GUI application,
85 it will pop up a command prompt window if run directly from Explorer.
87 + runemacs.exe - A wrapper for running Emacs as a GUI application
88 without popping up a command prompt window. If you create a
89 desktop shortcut for invoking Emacs, make it point to this
90 executable, not to emacs.exe.
92 + emacsclient.exe - A command-line client program that can
93 communicate with a running Emacs process. See the `Emacs Server'
94 node of the Emacs manual.
96 + emacsclientw.exe - A version of emacsclient that does not open
97 a command-line window.
99 + addpm.exe - A basic installer that creates Start Menu icons for Emacs.
100 Running this is optional.
102 + cmdproxy.exe - Used internally by Emacs to work around problems with
103 the native shells in various versions of Windows.
105 + ctags.exe, etags.exe - Tools for generating tag files. See the
106 `Tags' node of the Emacs manual.
108 + ebrowse.exe - A tool for generating C++ browse information. See the
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.
127 Emacs has built in support for XBM and PPM/PGM/PBM images, and the
128 libXpm library is bundled, providing XPM support (required for color
129 toolbar icons and splash screen). Source for libXpm should be available
130 on the same place as you got this binary distribution from.
132 Emacs can also support some other image formats with appropriate
133 libraries. These libraries are all available as part of GTK
134 download for Windows (http://www.gtk.org/download/win32.php), or
135 from the GnuWin32 project. Emacs will find them if the directory
136 they are installed in is on the PATH.
138 PNG: requires the PNG reference library 1.4 or later, which will
139 be named libpng14.dll or libpng14-14.dll. LibPNG requires zlib,
140 which should come from the same source as you got libpng.
141 Starting with Emacs 23.3, the precompiled Emacs binaries are
142 built with libpng 1.4.x and later, and are incompatible with
143 earlier versions of libpng DLLs. So if you have libpng 1.2.x,
144 the PNG support will not work, and you will have to download
147 JPEG: requires the Independent JPEG Group's libjpeg 6b or later,
148 which will be called jpeg62.dll, libjpeg.dll, jpeg-62.dll or jpeg.dll.
150 TIFF: requires libTIFF 3.0 or later, which will be called libtiff3.dll
153 GIF: requires libungif or giflib 4.1 or later, which will be
154 called giflib4.dll, libungif4.dll or libungif.dll.
156 If you have image support DLLs under different names, customize the
157 value of `dynamic-library-alist'.
159 In addition, Emacs can be compiled to support SVG. This precompiled
160 distribution has not been compiled that way, since the SVG library
161 or one or more of its extensive dependencies appear to be
162 unreliable under Windows. See nt/INSTALL in the src distribution if
163 you wish to compile Emacs with SVG support.
167 In order to support GnuTLS at runtime, Emacs must be able to find
168 the relevant DLLs during startup; failure to do so is not an error,
169 but GnuTLS won't be available to the running session.
171 You can get pre-built binaries (including any required DLL and the
172 header files) at http://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/.
176 In order to support libxml2 at runtime, a libxml2-enabled Emacs must
177 be able to find the relevant DLLs during startup; failure to do so
178 is not an error, but libxml2 features won't be available to the
181 You can get pre-built binaries (including any required DLL and the
182 header files) at http://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/.
186 If you should need to uninstall Emacs, simply delete all the files
187 and subdirectories from the directory where it was unpacked (Emacs
188 does not install or update any files in system directories or
189 anywhere else). If you ran the addpm.exe program to create the
190 registry entries and the Start menu icon, then you can remove the
191 registry entries using regedit. All of the settings are written
192 under the Software\GNU\Emacs key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, or if you
193 didn't have administrator privileges when you installed, the same
194 key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Just delete the whole Software\GNU\Emacs
197 The Start menu entry can be removed by right-clicking on the Task bar
198 and selecting Properties, then using the Remove option on the Start
199 Menu Programs page. (If you installed under an account with
200 administrator privileges, then you need to click the Advanced button
201 and look for the Gnu Emacs menu item under All Users.)
205 Unpacking the distributions
207 If you encounter trouble trying to run Emacs, there are a number of
208 possible causes. Check the following for indications that the
209 distribution was not corrupted by the tools used to unpack it:
211 * Be sure to disable CR/LF translation or the executables will
212 be unusable. Older versions of WinZipNT would enable this
213 translation by default. If you are using WinZipNT, disable it.
214 (I don't have WinZipNT myself, and I do not know the specific
215 commands necessary to disable it.)
217 * Check that filenames were not truncated to 8.3. For example,
218 there should be a file lisp\abbrevlist.elc; if this has been
219 truncated to abbrevli.elc, your distribution has been corrupted
220 while unpacking and Emacs will not start.
222 * On Windows 9X, make sure you have the UNICOWS.DLL library either
223 in the same directory where you have emacs.exe or in the
224 directory where system-wide DLLs are kept.
226 If you believe you have unpacked the distributions correctly and are
227 still encountering problems, see the section on Further Information
232 Some virus scanners interfere with Emacs' use of subprocesses. If you
233 are unable to use subprocesses and you use Dr. Solomon's WinGuard or
234 McAfee's Vshield, turn off "Scan all files" (WinGuard) or "boot sector
235 scanning" (McAfee exclusion properties).
237 * Further information
239 The FAQ for the MS Windows port of Emacs is distributed with Emacs
240 (info manual "efaq-w32"), and also available at
242 http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/efaq-w32.html
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://lists.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 particularly 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:
272 If you encounter a bug in this port of Emacs, we would like to hear
273 about it. First check the FAQ on the web page above to see if the bug
274 is already known and if there are any workarounds. Then check whether
275 the bug has something to do with code in your .emacs file, e.g. by
276 invoking Emacs with the "-Q" option.
278 If you decide that it is a bug in Emacs, use the built in bug
279 reporting facility to report it (from the menu; Help -> Send Bug Report).
280 If you have not yet configured Emacs for mail, then when you press
281 C-c C-c to send the report, it will ask you to paste the text of the
282 report into your mail client. If the bug is related to subprocesses,
283 also specify which shell you are using (e.g., include the values of
284 `shell-file-name' and `explicit-shell-file-name' in your message).
289 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
291 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
292 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
293 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
294 (at your option) any later version.
296 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
297 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
298 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
299 GNU General Public License for more details.
301 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
302 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.