People have successfully installed emacs (version 21.3) on Windows 95, 98, 2K, NT, ME, XP, and Vista using the instructions below. [I have not tried Vista myself yet with these instructions, but Sherrie used them successfully.]

Warning: This page is being maintained mainly for my students. Use these instructions at your own risk if you are not a student taking one of my classes. There is no warranty in any form or shape whatsoever! There is no guaranty that these instructions are up-to-date although I will update them for my students on an on-going basis. With that understanding, you may continue with the rest of this page if you choose to accept these terms.

Emacs version 21.3: So, let's get to it. The instructions below were last updated in September 2005, but still valid - emacs is a very stable system and we would not expect it to change much at all.

Follow these steps to download and install Emacs on your windows machine. There is no room for creativity here; you must follow the directions exactly - every single word.!.

1. Pick the drive and a folder in which you want to install Emacs. I'll assume that it is C:\emacs, but you can choose a different one. If you choose a different drive or a different folder, you'll need to adapt the directions below accordingly.

2. Create an empty folder C:\emacs. At the DOS prompt in the C: drive, type mkdir emacs.

3. Download emacs-21.3-bin-i386.tar.gz to C:\emacs\emacs-21.3-bin-i386.tar.gz by right-clicking on the link and using Save Link As... or Save Target As.... Or simply clicking on it would work as well here. It is about 13.2 megabytes. Make sure the entire file was downloaded without any network errors. The browser will save the file using the name that appears in the underlined link. (In some Windows XP machines it is known to use emacs-21.3-bin-i386.tar.tar instead as it downloads it. If that happens, change the name back to emacs-21.3-bin-i386.tar.gz before you continue. Note that your Windows Explorer may actually show emacs-21.3-bin-i386.tar by hiding that file extension (.gz) in which case you can actually change the settings so that it displays the extension. Try the Tools menu in your Windows Explorer and Folder Options. Then, the View menu and uncheck the Hide extensions for known file types and OK to keep the change.)

   At this point, you should have one file named emacs-21.3-bin-i386.tar.gz of about 13.2 megabytes in the C:\emacs folder. Check to be sure.

4. Click on that file using Windows Explorer to extract files from that archived file. Your extracted files should go into C:\emacs folder. Assuming that you already have a program installed in your machine that knows how to unpack the zipped file, you can click on it to extract the files. In my case I have PowerArchiver installed on my machine and that gets invoked automatically when I click on a zip file. PowerArchiver is available free. Chances are that you already have this program or something that works like that installed on your Windows machine. If there is no program that knows how to unpack the zip file, install PowerArchiver before you continue. Once extraction is done, you will see a folder named emacs-21.3 under C:\emacs. Under emacs-21.3, you will see other folders including bin, etc, info, etc. At this point, you have downloaded and placed the files in the right places.

5. Next, you will download a file that will customize your emacs a little so that it makes your editor screen easier to read with colors recognizing some standard file types that you will be editing, e.g., a Java program file. Download _emacs.txt to C:\emacs\_emacs.txt by right-clicking on the link. Yes, the underscore character is part of the name. Use Save Link As... or Save Target As... Now, rename it to _emacs with Windows Explorer so that there is no .txt extension (or any other extension) as part of the file name. Remember that your Windows Explorer may not show the extension (.txt) even if it is actually there if your settings hid the extension? Change the settings to unhide the extension and remove it.

6. Depending on the operating system that you use, choose one of the following paths:
   • 95 or 98: edit your autoexec.bat file and add this line:

     set HOME=C:\emacs\
            

     You will probably find autoexec.bat on your C: drive. Edit it with Notepad. You can't edit it by clicking on it. Start Notepad and then open it with the File menu.
   • 2K, ME, or XP: add HOME as an environment variable. Follow Start > Settings > Control Panel > System. Then select Advanced followed by Environment Variables. Then, add HOME as a user variable with its value C:\emacs\.
   • NT: It works like 98 with the autoexec.bat file. I suspect it would work like 2K as well, but I have not tried it that way myself.
7. Restart your machine.

8. At this point, you might want to create an icon on your desktop for the Emacs that you just installed. Go to the C:\emacs\emacs-21.3\bin folder using Windows Explorer. There you will find a file named runemacs.exe. Create a shortcut to the desktop so that you can use it to run Emacs from the desktop. Now, you should be in business! If it doesn't work, you made a mistake in one of the steps above. Double and triple check.

9. After you create the shortcut, you might want to change the default 'Start in' folder. Change it to whatever you like through the Properties menu of the icon.

10. If you want to clean up a little, you may delete emacs-21.3-bin-i386.tar.gz at this point. You still need _emacs and emacs-21.3 in the C:\emacs folder though.

11. To learn how to use Emacs, try Emacs Tutorial that you can find under the Help menu in the Emacs window. Or, if you want a simpler version, try this tutorial that I wrote.

12. [Only optionally because I wanted this to be a simple page that shows just enough to get started.] To learn how to customize Emacs or simply to see more help on it, try Emacs Help Guide by Hemant Kumar. (That site will talk about .emacs file, which is the unix/linux version of _emacs.) I am sure there are many other sources of information on emacs out there, but Paul Fiorillo found this site.

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    Maintained by Art Lee (alee at cmc dot edu).