GNU Emacs/JDE on Windows NT and Windows 95/98

Emacs release 20.4.1
JDE release 2.1.5

Last modified:   Monday, September 27, 1999

This file describes how to install a precompiled version of Emacs that has been configured to work with the JDE (Java Development Environment).  You should already have installed the JDK and Netscape on your system.  If you have problems installing Emacs on your machine, or you have problems getting it to run, I would suggest looking at the Emacs or the JDE home pages for additional help and troubleshooting hints.

To install this software on your machine:

1.  Create a directory on your machine where Emacs will live (I suggest that you put Emacs in c:\emacs, but it can live anywhere).

2.  Down load the zip file that contains the programs and associated files by clicking here.   Unpack the zip file into the directory where Emacs will live (i.e. c:\emacs).

3.  Run the program bin\addpm.exe with the Emacs directory as an argument. In this example you would invoke it as:

c:\emacs\bin\addpm.exe c:\emacs

Invoking addpm.exe will do two things. First, it will create a set of registry keys that tell Emacs where to find its support files (lisp, info, etc.). Second, it will create a folder containing an icon linked to runemacs.exe (a wrapper program for invoking Emacs).

4.  Now create a home directory in your computer's filesystem. The home directory is the directory where Emacs expects to find your Emacs startup file (see next step).  Your home directory can be located anywhere you choose and can have any name. (I call my home directory: c:\ptt.).

Note: Creating a home directory is not a prerequisite to installing Emacs. If you do not specify a home directory via a HOME variable, Emacs assumes that your home directory is c:\. However, I highly recommend this step.  Segregating your startup file(s) in a separate directory makes them easier to manage.

5.  In your home directory you must place a startup file that tells Emacs where to find the programs that make up the JDE.  The startup file can be named .emacs or _emacs.   If you click here you will get a copy of a simple startup file that I use named _emacs.

Save this file in your home directory using the Save as command in Netscape.   Make sure that you save the file as a plain text file named _emacs (not as _emacs.html as Netscape suggests).  If you do not save it using the correct name, Emacs will not be able to locate the file.

6.  Now you need to tell your computer where Emacs lives and where your home directory is.  

• If you are using windows 95 or 98, you do this by placing additional information in your autoexec.bat file.   Start an editor on your autoexec.bat file (from a DOS prompt typing edit c:\autoexec.bat will work).  Add the following two lines to the end of your autoexec.bat file:

  path %path%;c:\emacs\bin
  set HOME=c:\ptt

  The first line should contain the name of the directory where you placed Emacs, followed by \bin.  The second line should contain the name of the directory where you placed your home directory (on my system Emacs lives in c:\emacs and my home directory is in c:\ptt).  Save the changes that you have made. 

• If you have an NT type operating system, e.g., Windows 2000, Windows XP, you will need to set these same environment variables through the System control panel. For example, on a Windows 2000 machine, this means
  • Selecting Setting from the Start menu,
  • Selecting Control Panel from the submenu that comes up.
  • Double-clicking on the System control panel icon.
  • Selecting the Advanced tab
  • Clicking on Environment Variables.
  • Finally adding the two lines as shown above using New under the User variables for ptt window. (Of course, you will replace "ptt" with the name of the directory you created.)
  You may also need to add the path to the Java JDK bin directory as well to your path variable. (You'll know if it can't find javac when you try to compile from emacs!)

• (If you can't tell which type your OS is, you might do a "find" on autoexec.bat. If files of that name are only associated with specific programs or if they don't exist at all, you are probably in the NT category.)

Note:  On some systems you may need to restart your computer in order for these changes to take affect.

7.  Now, to run Emacs, simply click on the icon in the newly created folder or invoke runemacs.exe from a command prompt.

Note that, on Win9x, you are likely to get "Out of environment space" messages when invoking the emacs.bat batch file. The problem is that the console process in which the script is executed runs out of memory in which to set the Emacs environment variables. To get around this problem, create a shortcut icon to the emacs.bat script. Then right click on the icon and select Properties. In the dialog box that pops up, select the Memory tab and then change the Environment memory allocation from "Auto" to "1024". Close the dialog box and then double click on the icon to start Emacs.