Emacs in Windows

Question

How do you run Emacs in Windows?

What is the best flavor of Emacs to use in Windows, and where can I download it? And where is the .emacs file located?

Answer 1

Note that GNU Emacs for Windows comes with two executables to start Emacs: "emacs.exe" and "runemacs.exe". The former keeps a DOS-Prompt window in the background, while the latter does not, so when if you choose that distribution and want to create a shortcut, be sure to launch "runemacs.exe".

Carl

Answer 2

I use EmacsW32, it works great. EDIT: I now use regular GNU Emacs 24, see below.

See its EmacsWiki page for details.

To me, the biggest advantage is that:

• it has a version of emacsclient that starts the Emacs server if no server is running (open all your files in the same Emacs window)
• it includes several useful packages such as Nxml
• it has a Windows installer or you can build it from sources

And concerning XEmacs, according to this post by Steve Yegge:

To summarize, I've argued that XEmacs has a much lower market share, poorer performance, more bugs, much lower stability, and at this point probably fewer features than GNU Emacs. When you add it all up, it's the weaker candidate by a large margin.

EDIT: I now use regular GNU Emacs 24. It also contains Nxml, can be installed or built from sources, and with this wrapper, the Emacs server starts if no server is running. Cheers!