Hi In the file ~/etc/PROBLEMS is a mention of potential problems with libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll. I have an installation of MinGW on this windows machine which is in my PATH, as do many other emacs users, I would imagine. If I rename libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll in my MinGW installation, emacs works fine and does not crash on exit. However, this breaks MinGW. So I checked for mentions of libgcc in the emacs executables: Bill@CYNTHIA /d/Images/emacs/emacs-24.4 $ find . -name "*.dll" -exec strings -f {} \; | grep libgcc ./bin/libXpm.dll: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll Bill@CYNTHIA /d/Images/emacs/emacs-24.4 $ find . -name "*.exe" -exec strings -f {} \; | grep libgcc ./bin/addpm.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./bin/ctags.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./bin/ebrowse.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./bin/emacs-24.4.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./bin/emacs.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./bin/emacsclient.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./bin/emacsclientw.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./bin/etags.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./bin/runemacs.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./libexec/emacs/24.4/i686-pc-mingw32/cmdproxy.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./libexec/emacs/24.4/i686-pc-mingw32/ddeclient.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./libexec/emacs/24.4/i686-pc-mingw32/hexl.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./libexec/emacs/24.4/i686-pc-mingw32/movemail.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./libexec/emacs/24.4/i686-pc-mingw32/profile.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll ./libexec/emacs/24.4/i686-pc-mingw32/update-game-score.exe: libgcc_s_dw2-1.dll Every executable file in the emacs version 24.4 windows installation has a reference to this dll. I don't think this problem is fixable without building my own version from source. I use the binary version to avoid this. I will have to revert to the previous version intil someone does a build without this problem. Regards Bill In GNU Emacs 24.4.1 (i686-pc-mingw32) of 2014-10-24 on LEG570 Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 6.1.7601 Configured using: `configure --prefix=/c/usr' Important settings: value of $LANG: ENG locale-coding-system: cp1252 Major mode: Fundamental Minor modes in effect: delete-selection-mode: t show-paren-mode: t cua-mode: t tooltip-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t buffer-read-only: t column-number-mode: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Recent input: M-x r e p o r Recent messages: Loading cua-base...done Loading paren...done For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a. Making completion list... [2 times] Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr emacsbug message format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util help-fns mail-prsvr mail-utils help-mode easymenu saveplace delsel paren cua-base cus-start cus-load time-date tooltip electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel dos-w32 ls-lisp w32-common-fns disp-table w32-win w32-vars tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev minibuffer nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process w32notify w32 multi-tty emacs) Memory information: ((conses 8 85268 6784) (symbols 32 18620 0) (miscs 32 81 107) (strings 16 12741 3702) (string-bytes 1 316673) (vectors 8 9842) (vector-slots 4 389888 5490) (floats 8 64 490) (intervals 28 256 41) (buffers 508 14))