Emacs for Windows NT and Windows 95/98
			    Version 20.3

This directory contains precompiled distributions for GNU Emacs on
Windows NT and Windows 95.  This port is a part of the standard GNU
Emacs distribution from the Free Software Foundation; the precompiled
distributions are simply provided here for convenience since, unlike
Unix, the majority of Windows users do not have access to a compiler
(and, besides, do you really want to compile Emacs when you don't have
to?).

Each directory of precompiled distributions corresponds to a different
platform.  Note that the i386 directory contains distributions that
run on both NT and Win95/98 on the x86 platform (the same executables
run on all versions of the operating systems).

* What files do I need to download?

Every distribution file has a version number, such as 20.3.1.  As
Windows related bugs are fixed and new features added to a major
release of Emacs, we release a new minor version, incrementing the
minor version number in the process (e.g., 20.3.2 succeeds 20.3.1).
The instructions below assume 20.3.1, but they apply equally well to
the other incremental versions.

There are two different precompiled distributions of Emacs 20.3:

emacs-20.3.1-bin-(arch).tar.gz		-- Dumped executable distribution
emacs-20.3.1-undumped-(arch).tar.gz	-- Undumped executable distribution

Most users will only need the first distribution, which contains the
Emacs executables, the compiled elisp files, and the other sundry
Emacs runtime files.  Note that this distribution does _not_ contain
the elisp source files (see below).

The undumped executable distribution contains an undumped version of
Emacs; if you are having trouble getting the other precompiled
versions of Emacs working on your system, you can use the undumped
version to dump an Emacs executable adapted to your system.  Note that
both of these distributions require the dumped executable distribution
for them to work correctly.

There are also two source distributions:

emacs-20.3.1-lisp.tar.gz		-- Lisp source files
emacs-20.3.1-src.tar.gz 		-- Full source distribution

The lisp source file distribution contains the source for the elisp
files in the lisp subdirectory.  The full source distribution contains
the full Emacs source with which you can compile Emacs.

If you need to place a distribution onto floppies, download the
collection of zip files for the corresponding distribution:

em2031_?.zip				-- Dumped executable distribution

* Unpacking distributions

Utilities for handling the distribution file formats can be found in
the "utilities" directory: for gzipped tar files, you will need
gunzip.exe and tar.exe; for zip files, you will need unzip.exe.  I
strongly urge you to use these utilities since they were the ones used
to create the distributions; the most common problem people have in
trying to get Emacs to run is due to some other utility program
corrupting the distributing while unpacking.

Open a command prompt (MSDOS) window.  Decide on a directory in which
to place Emacs.  Move the distribution to that directory, and then
unpack it as follows.  

If you have the gzipped tar version, first use gunzip to uncompress
the tar file, and then use tar with the "xvf" flags to extract the
files from the tar file:

  % gunzip -c -d emacs.tar.gz | tar xvf -

You may see messages from tar about not being able to change the
modification time on directories, and from gunzip complaining about a
broken pipe.  These messages are harmless and you can ignore them.

The "-d" flag forces gunzip to decompress (its behavior depends upon
the name of the executable, and sometimes it doesn't recognize that it
is really gunzip), and the "-c" flag tells it to pipe its output to
stdout.  Similarly, the "-" flag to tar tells it to read the tar file
from stdin.  Unpacking the distribution this way leaves the
distribution in compressed form, taking up less space on disk.

If for some reason you also want to have the tar file gunzipped, then
invoke gunzip without the -c option:

  % gunzip -d emacs.tar.gz

If you have the zip version, again open a command prompt window and
use unzip with the "-x" flag on all of the .zip files (note that you
canp with the "-x" flag on all of the .zip files (note that you cannot
use pkunzip on these files, as pkunzip will not preserve the long
filenames):

  % unzip -x emacs-_1.zip
  % (repeat for the remaining .zip files)

You can find precompiled versions of all of the compression and
archive utilities in:

  ftp://ftp.cs.washington.edu/pub/ntemacs/utilities

Once you have unpacked a precompiled distribution of Emacs, it should
have the following subdirectories:

	bin	etc	info	lisp	lock	site-lisp

If your utility failed to create the lock directory, then you can
simply create it by hand (it is initially empty).

If you do use other utility programs to unpack the distribution, check
the following to be sure the distribution was not corrupted:

  * Be sure to disable the CR/LF translation or the executables will
    be unusable.  Older versions of WinZipNT would enable this translation
    by default.  If you are using WinZipNT, disable it.  (I don't have
    WinZipNT myself, and I do not know the specific commands necessary to
    disable it.)

  * Check that filenames were not truncated to 8.3.  For example, there
    should be a file lisp\term\win32-win.el; if this has been truncated to
    win32-wi.el, your distribution has been corrupted while unpacking and
    Emacs will not start.

  * I've been told that some utilities (WinZip again?) don't create the
    lock subdirectory.  The lock subdirectory needs to be created.

  * I've also had reports that the gnu-win32 tar corrupts the
    executables.  Use the version of tar on my ftp site instead.

If you believe you have unpacked the distributions correctly and are
still encountering problems, see the section on Further Information
below.

* Further information

If you have access to the World Wide Web, I would recommend pointing
your favorite web browser to the document (if you haven't already):

	http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemacs.html

This web document serves as a FAQ and a source for further information
about the port and related software packages.

There is also a mailing list for discussing issues related to this
port of Emacs.  For information about the list, send a message to
ntemacs-users-request@cs.washington.edu with the word "info" in the
*body* of the message.  To subscribe to the list, send a message to
the same address with the word "subscribe" in the body of the message;
similarly, to unsubscribe from the list, send a message with the word
"unsubscribe" in the message body.

* Reporting bugs

If you encounter a bug in this port of Emacs, we would like to hear
about it.  First check the FAQ on the web page above to see if the bug
is already known and if there are any workarounds. Then check whether
the bug has something to do with code in your .emacs file: invoke
Emacs with the "-q" option and see if the bug remains.  If the problem
is due to something in your .emacs file, decide whether it is a bug in
your .emacs file or whether it is really an Emacs bug.  If you decide
that it is a bug in Emacs, send a message to the mailing list
(ntemacs-users@cs.washington.edu) describing the bug, the version of
Emacs that you are using, and the operating system that you are
running on.  If the bug is related to subprocesses, also specify which
shell you are using (e.g., include the values of shell-file-name and
shell-explicit-file-name in your message).

Enjoy.

Geoff Voelker
(voelker@cs.washington.edu)

Andrew Innes
(andrewi@harlequin.co.uk)

February 11, 1998