Re: windows installer

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2017 15:27:45 +0100 (CET)
> From: Angelo Graziosi <angelo.g0@libero.it>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> 
> > > cat E:/Emacs_portable/bin/runemacs_portable.bat
> > > set HOME=%~dp0..\HOME
> > > "%~dp0runemacs.exe" %*
> > 
> > That will do The Wrong Thing if the machine already has a home
> > directory for the user.
> 
> Hmm.. it redefines HOME only for Emacs so that .emacs.d, .gnupg etc. go there and not in %APPDATA%

No, you redefine HOME for every application that Emacs will invoke as
well.

> > I think a better solution is to set emacs_dir.  See its documentation
> > in the user manual.
> 
> I have seen it (https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/emacs.html#Misc-Variables) but I didn't understand much. Really defining
> 
> emacs_dir=%~dp0..\
> 
> in the .bat make .emacs.d go on the portable device?

I don't think you need to do that, as Emacs does that automatically.
In any case, this is separate from the HOME issue.  If Emacs already
finds all of its files on the USB, then emacs_dir setting is not
needed.  Unless you have INFOPATH set on that machine, or one of the
other environment variables, like EMACSLOADPATH, that override
emacs_dir.

As for HOME, I think you should set it only if it is not already set,
and you should use setlocal, not set.