Information in these pages is incorrect:

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Windows-HOME.html
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/efaq-w32/Location-of-init-file.html

In my case .emacs is at "C:\Users\bjorn\AppData\Roaming\.emacs" Emacs does
not set the value of the HOME variable to that location:

(getenv "HOME")
"C:\\Users\\bjorn"

And "Within Emacs, <~> at the beginning of a file name is expanded to your
HOME directory, so you can always find your .emacs file by typing the
command C-x C-f ~/.emacs." is therefore not true:

(expand-file-name "~/.emacs")
"c:/Users/bjorn/.emacs"


-- 
mvh/best regards Björn Lindqvist