MS Windows has different shell-quoting logic from POSIX shells, so the regexp to abbreviate the `find' command's properties in rgrep fails to match on MS Windows. The attached patch fixes this by looking for either `\)' (POSIX) or `")"' (MS Windows) as the end of the properties list. Steps to reproduce: ;; Ensure GNU find and grep are in your path emacs -Q M-x rgrep RET foo RET RET RET ;; See the full, unabbreviated command instead of `find [...] -exec grep'... To make things easier to review for people without access to MS Windows, this is the full invocation for rgrep: ---------- Begin Block ---------- find . -type d "(" -path "*/SCCS" -o -path "*/RCS" -o -path "*/CVS" -o -path "*/MCVS" -o -path "*/.src" -o -path "*/.svn" -o -path "*/.git" -o -path "*/.hg" -o -path "*/.bzr" -o -path "*/_MTN" -o -path "*/_darcs" -o -path "*/{arch}" ")" -prune -o ^"^!^" -type d "(" -name ".#*" -o -name "*.o" -o -name "*~" -o -name "*.bin" -o -name "*.bak" -o -name "*.obj" -o -name "*.map" -o -name "*.ico" -o -name "*.pif" -o -name "*.lnk" -o -name "*.a" -o -name "*.ln" -o -name "*.blg" -o -name "*.bbl" -o -name "*.dll" -o -name "*.drv" -o -name "*.vxd" -o -name "*.386" -o -name "*.elc" -o -name "*.lof" -o -name "*.glo" -o -name "*.idx" -o -name "*.lot" -o -name "*.fmt" -o -name "*.tfm" -o -name "*.class" -o -name "*.fas" -o -name "*.lib" -o -name "*.mem" -o -name "*.x86f" -o -name "*.sparcf" -o -name "*.dfsl" -o -name "*.pfsl" -o -name "*.d64fsl" -o -name "*.p64fsl" -o -name "*.lx64fsl" -o -name "*.lx32fsl" -o -name "*.dx64fsl" -o -name "*.dx32fsl" -o -name "*.fx64fsl" -o -name "*.fx32fsl" -o -name "*.sx64fsl" -o -name "*.sx32fsl" -o -name "*.wx64fsl" -o -name "*.wx32fsl" -o -name "*.fasl" -o -name "*.ufsl" -o -name "*.fsl" -o -name "*.dxl" -o -name "*.lo" -o -name "*.la" -o -name "*.gmo" -o -name "*.mo" -o -name "*.toc" -o -name "*.aux" -o -name "*.cp" -o -name "*.fn" -o -name "*.ky" -o -name "*.pg" -o -name "*.tp" -o -name "*.vr" -o -name "*.cps" -o -name "*.fns" -o -name "*.kys" -o -name "*.pgs" -o -name "*.tps" -o -name "*.vrs" -o -name "*.pyc" -o -name "*.pyo" ")" -prune -o -type f "(" -iname "*" -o -iname ^".[^!.]*^" -o -iname "..?*" ")" -exec grep --color=always -i -nH --null "foo" "{}" ";" ---------- End Block ----------