Re: windows: find init

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 20:42:25 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com>
> Injection-Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2015 03:42:26 +0000
> 
> On Saturday, June 13, 2015 at 9:05:21 AM UTC+5:30, Vaidheeswaran C wrote:
> > On Saturday 13 June 2015 08:49 AM, Rusi wrote:
> > > Some students of mine have shown willingness to work with emacs
> > > However the problems of setup on windows are proving beyond me.
> > > 
> > > In particular, on windows, where is the emacs setup file/directory?
> > 
> > http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/efaq-w32.html#Location-of-init-file
> 
> [Not on windows now so from memory]
> Yeah I know that page
> And I tried those env-variable setting options [for a couple of hours] before
> giving up

I'm guessing you have added/changed the environment variables or
Registry values without logoff/logon afterwards, and expected that to
work.  It won't.

To try which of the variables and values work for you, do this:

  . set/change the variable from the Windows shell prompt, as in
    "set HOME=c:\wherever\you\want"

  . run Emacs from the same shell prompt

Once you've decided which variable you want to set and to what value,
make it permanent by right-clicking "My Computer" (or "Computer" on
post-XP versions), selecting Properties->Advanced, find "Environment
Variables" there, and change them as you decided.  Then logoff and
logon again, or restart the system.  Now the new value of the
environment variable will be in effect no matter how you invoke Emacs:
you can do that from a shell prompt, from a desktop shortcut, or from
the Start->Run dialog, whatever.

That said, there's nothing wrong with using the default without
setting HOME in the environment.  The default puts .emacs in a decent
place, and users can always reach it with "C-x C-f ~/.emacs RET"
without knowing where it is on their system.