Can't run iex in Windows command prompt or git bash

Question

I just installed elixir via chocolatey on my Windows 7 machine. At the root of the C directory, inside of an Administrator command prompt, I ran:

c:\> cinst elixir

This successfully installed erlang and elixir -- v.1.0.4. Nothing failed, all success messages. I then restarted the command prompt and ran

c:\> iex.bat

I receive an error:

'iex.bat' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

I usually run a mac, so I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to Windows. Also tried running iex in git bash, but no luck. How do I run iex?

Answer 1

Neither Erlang nor Elixir are automatically added to your path by Chocolatey. So make sure you add both Erlang's and Elixir's bin directory to your path. Since you mention that you're not really used to Windows, try running this at the command prompt before you try to execute iex.bat:

SET PATH=C:/"Program Files"/erl6.4/bin;C:/Elixir/bin;%PATH%

Obviously you'll want to adjust to the paths where you've installed things.

Oh and you'll want to run iex.bat. I don't think iex.bat will run from a git bash prompt but I can't remember the last time I tried it.

EDIT:

For Elixir 1.0.5, you want to modify the path above to use C:/"Program Files"/erl7.0/bin (Erlang/OTP 18.0) assuming you've installed from Chocolatey.

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EDIT:

Elixir is now added to the path on Windows (from Elixir 1.2.4) via the Chocolatey Nuget installer. Erlang may still need to be added manually; it's dependent on the Erlang Windows installer. Also @manveru's comment below no longer applies. ielixir.exe was a shim that was applied at one point to attempt to work around the path issues. It's been discontinued for a few versions now.