1 Copyright (C) 2001-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
2 See the end of the file for license conditions.
6 This README file describes how to set up and run a precompiled
7 distribution of GNU Emacs for MS-Windows. You can find the
8 precompiled 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, as is this
18 file under the name README.W32. If you received this file as part
19 of the Emacs source distribution, and are looking for information on
20 how to build Emacs on MS-Windows, please read those 2 files and not
25 There are two binary distributions named
26 emacs-VER-x86_64-w64-mingw32.zip and emacs-VER-i686-w64-mingw32.zip,
27 where VER is the Emacs version. These are 64-bit and 32-bit builds,
28 respectively. If you are running a 32-bit version of MS-Windows,
29 you need to install the 32-bit build; users of 64-bit Windows can
30 use either build, but we recommend to install the 64-bit one, as it
31 will be able to edit larger buffers and will generally run faster.
33 The binary distribution has these top-level directories:
42 To install Emacs, simply unpack the binary package into a directory
43 of your choice. If you use the Windows Explorer and its "Extract"
44 action, by default this will be in a top-level directory with the
45 same name as the zip file.
47 We also provide a set of optional dependencies, in
48 emacs-MVER-x86_64-deps.zip or emacs-MVER-i686-deps.zip respectively,
49 where MVER is the major Emacs version that should use these
50 libraries. These provide Emacs with a number of additional optional
51 capabilities, described in detail below. To use these, unpack them
52 directly over the emacs directory structure. Note that, if
53 extracting with the Windows Explorer, you will have to override the
54 directory where it wants to put the file with the same directory
55 where you extracted the Emacs binary package.
57 Finally, and also optionally, you can run the program addpm.exe in
58 the bin subdirectory which will place an icon for Emacs on the start
59 page. (This is no longer needed in latest versions of Emacs, so we
60 recommend you not do that, as running addpm.exe will insert entries
61 into the Registry which might get in the way if you upgrade to later
62 versions without updating those entries, or would like to uninstall
65 Emacs is completely portable. You can create your own shortcut to
66 runemacs.exe and place this wherever you find it convenient (the
67 desktop and/or the Taskbar), or run it from a USB or network drive
68 without copying or installing anything on the machine itself.
70 * Prerequisites for Windows 9X
72 The 32-bit build supports MS-Windows 9X (Windows 95/98/Me). To run
73 Emacs on these versions of Windows, you will need to have the
74 Microsoft Layer for Unicode (MSLU) installed. It can be downloaded
75 from the Microsoft site, and comes in a form of a single dynamic
76 library called UNICOWS.DLL. If this library is not accessible to
77 Emacs on Windows 9X, it will pop up a dialog saying that it cannot
78 find the UNICOWS library, and will refuse to start up.
82 To run Emacs, simply select Emacs from the Start Menu, or invoke
83 runemacs.exe directly from Explorer or from a command prompt. This
84 will start Emacs in its default GUI mode, ready to use. If you have
85 never used Emacs before, you should follow the tutorial at this
86 point (select Emacs Tutorial from the Help menu), since Emacs is
87 quite different from ordinary Windows applications in many respects.
89 If you want to use Emacs in tty or character mode within a command
90 window, you can start it by typing "emacs -nw" at the command prompt.
91 (Obviously, you need to ensure that the Emacs bin subdirectory is in
92 your Path first, or specify the path to emacs.exe.) The -nw
93 (non-windowed) mode of operation is most useful if you have a telnet
94 server on your machine, allowing you to run Emacs remotely.
98 Emacs comes with the following executable files in the bin directory.
100 + emacs.exe - The main Emacs executable. As this is designed to run
101 as both a text-mode application (emacs -nw) and as a GUI application,
102 it will pop up a command prompt window if run directly from Explorer.
104 + runemacs.exe - A wrapper for running Emacs as a GUI application
105 without popping up a command prompt window. If you create a
106 desktop shortcut for invoking Emacs, make it point to this
107 executable, not to emacs.exe.
109 + emacsclient.exe - A command-line client program that can
110 communicate with a running Emacs process. See the `Emacs Server'
111 node of the Emacs manual.
113 + emacsclientw.exe - A version of emacsclient that does not open
114 a command-line window.
116 + addpm.exe - A basic installer that adds Emacs to "Start" menus and
117 adds Emacs-related entries to the Windows Registry.
119 + ctags.exe, etags.exe - Tools for generating tag files. See the
120 `Tags' node of the Emacs manual.
122 + ebrowse.exe - A tool for generating C++ browse information. See the
125 Several helper programs are in a version-specific subdirectory of
126 the libexec directory:
128 + cmdproxy.exe - Used internally by Emacs to work around problems with
129 the native shells in various versions of Windows.
131 + ddeclient.exe - A tool for interacting with DDE servers. To be
132 invoked as "ddeclient SERVER [TOPIC]", where SERVER is the DDE
133 server name, and sends each line of its standard input to the DDE
134 server using the DdeClientTransaction API. This program is
135 supposed to be invoked via the 'call-process-region' Emacs
138 + hexl.exe - A tool for producing hex dumps of binary files. See the
139 `Editing Binary Files' node of the Emacs manual.
141 + movemail.exe - A helper application for safely moving mail from
142 a mail spool or POP server to a local user mailbox. See the
143 `Movemail' node of the Emacs manual.
145 + profile.exe - A helper program that generates periodic events for
146 profiling Emacs Lisp code.
148 + update-game-score.exe - A utility for updating the score files of
151 * Optional dependency libraries
153 Emacs has built in support for XBM and PPM/PGM/PBM images, and the
154 libXpm library is bundled, providing XPM support (required for color
155 toolbar icons and splash screen). Source for libXpm should be
156 available from the same place from which you got this binary
159 Emacs has a number of optional features which need additional
160 libraries. These are provided in a separate bundle of dependencies,
161 as described above, and enable support for the following:
163 - displaying inline images of many types (PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, SVG)
164 - SSL/TLS secure network communications (HTTPS, IMAPS, etc.)
165 - HTML and XML parsing (necessary for the built-in EWW browser)
166 - built-in decompression of compressed text
168 The optional dependency libraries are in emacs-MVER-x86_64-deps.zip
169 (64-bit) and emacs-MVER-i686-deps.zip (32-bit), and their sources
170 are in emacs-MVER-deps-mingw-w64-src.zip, where MVER is the major
171 version of Emacs that should use these dependencies. Note that a
172 64-bit Emacs will only work with the 64-bit dependencies, and the
173 32-bit Emacs only with the 32-bit dependencies.
175 Newer/updated builds for these optional libraries are available at
176 http://msys2.github.io/ and
177 http://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports/files/ (but you shouldn't
178 need these except in emergencies).
180 If you install the libraries in a directory different from where you
181 have the Emacs executable programs, we recommend to add the
182 directory with DLLs to your Path, so that Emacs will be able to find
183 those DLLs when needed.
185 * Installing Emacs with an existing MSYS2 installation
187 You may also use Emacs with an existing MSYS2 installation by simply
188 unpacking the Emacs distribution over MSYS2. You can then use the
189 'pacman' utility to install dependencies. You should not use the
190 optional dependencies bundle from this site, as this will overwrite
191 MSYS2 files (the dependency bundle derives from MSYS2, but may be a
194 Some of the optional libraries need to be of certain versions to
195 work with your Emacs binary. Make sure you install those versions
196 of dependencies, and no others. Emacs variables such as
197 libpng-version and libjpeg-version tell what versions of the
198 corresponding libraries are expected by Emacs. (We recommend that
199 you use the dependency bundle, where these issues are always
202 To install the optional libraries, start the MSYS2 Bash window and
203 type the following command:
207 where PACKAGES is the list of packages you want to install. The
208 full list is as follows:
210 mingw-w64-x86_64-giflib
211 mingw-w64-x86_64-gnutls
212 mingw-w64-x86_64-libjpeg-turbo
213 mingw-w64-x86_64-libpng
214 mingw-w64-x86_64-librsvg
215 mingw-w64-x86_64-libtiff
216 mingw-w64-x86_64-libxml2
217 mingw-w64-x86_64-xpm-nox
219 You can type any subset of this list. When asked whether to proceed
220 with installation, answer Y.
222 Alternatively, you could install the packages manually from this
225 https://sourceforge.net/projects/msys2/files/REPOS/MINGW/x86_64/
227 However, the packages there are not self-contained, so you will need
228 to manually download all their dependencies as well.
232 If you should need to uninstall Emacs, simply delete all the files
233 and subdirectories from the directory where it was unpacked (Emacs
234 does not install or update any files in system directories or
237 If you ran the addpm.exe program to create the Start menu icon, this
238 can be removed by right-clicking and "Uninstall".
240 Finally, addpm.exe also creates a few registry entries; these can be
241 safely left, but if you really wish to remove them, all of the
242 settings are written under the Software\GNU\Emacs key in
243 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, or if you didn't have administrator privileges
244 when you installed, the same key in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Just delete
245 the whole Software\GNU\Emacs key.
249 Some known problems and their solutions can be found in the file
250 etc\PROBLEMS in the unpacked Emacs distribution.
254 Some virus scanners interfere with Emacs' use of subprocesses. If you
255 are unable to use subprocesses and you use Dr. Solomon's WinGuard or
256 McAfee's Vshield, turn off "Scan all files" (WinGuard) or "boot sector
257 scanning" (McAfee exclusion properties).
261 On Windows 9X, make sure you have the UNICOWS.DLL library either in
262 the same directory where you have emacs.exe or in the directory
263 where system-wide DLLs are kept.
265 * Further information
267 The Emacs User manual describes Windows-specific issues in the
268 appendix named "Emacs and Microsoft Windows/MS-DOS". You can read
269 it in Emacs by typing
271 C-h r g Microsoft Windows RET
273 This appendix is also available (as part of the entire manual) at
275 http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/emacs.html#Microsoft-Windows
277 In addition to the manual, there is a mailing list for help with
280 http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs
282 To ask questions on this mailing list, send email to
283 help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
285 A mailing list for issuesspecifically related to the MS-Windows port
288 http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-emacs-windows
290 To ask questions on this mailing list, send email to
291 help-emacs-windows@gnu.org.
295 If you encounter a bug in this port of Emacs, we would like to hear
296 about it. First check the FAQ on the web page above to see if the bug
297 is already known and if there are any workarounds. Then check whether
298 the bug has something to do with code in your `.emacs' file, e.g. by
299 invoking Emacs with the "-Q" option.
301 If you decide that it is a bug in Emacs, use the built in bug
302 reporting facility to report it (from the menu: Help -> Send Bug Report).
303 If you have not yet configured Emacs for mail, then when you press
304 C-c C-c to send the report, it will ask you to paste the text of the
305 report into your mail client. If the bug is related to subprocesses,
306 also specify which shell you are using (e.g., include the values of
307 `shell-file-name' and `explicit-shell-file-name' in your message).
312 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
314 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
315 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
316 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
317 (at your option) any later version.
319 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
320 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
321 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
322 GNU General Public License for more details.
324 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
325 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.