RE: Emacs on Windows XP -> Cygwin

["Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> > I wouldn't recommend that. I am running Windows XP with Cygwin, and
> > I'm using the XP (w32) version of Emacs and the cygwin tools without
> > any problems.
>
> I wouldn't recommend doing what you do, unless the OP likes to
> "tinker" with all kinds of Emacs options and optional packages, such
> as cygwin-mount.  There are subtle incompatibilities between Cygwin
> and native Windows programs (file-name conventions, console and pipe
> I/O, text vs. binary I/O, signal delivery, etc.), so someone who's
> used for things "to just work", like they do on GNU/Linux, is well
> advised to limit him/herself to either only Cygwin programs or only
> native Windows programs.
>
> > The cygwin version of emacs is (AFAIK) an older version.
>
> One can find a pointer to the latest one by searching the archives of
> the Cygwin mailing list.
>
> > To get windowing support, you must run the Cygwin xserver.
>
> True, but where's the problem with that? an X server is available as
> part of the Cygwin download.

Eli is an expert wrt Emacs and Windows. And Lennart's EmacsW32
(http://www.ourcomments.org/Emacs/EmacsW32.html) is a very nice turnkey
installer.

I'm not an expert on this, and I don't mean to contradict the experts, but
here is another data point for your consideration, FYI/FWIW - it is what I
do and have done for a long time:

- I use a vanilla Emacs binary for Windows - the 22.1 release from GNU. No
EmacsW32 installer - just unzip the file to a directory.

- I use vanilla Cygwin (on Windows XP). I don't use an Emacs built for
Cygwin.

- I load these two Lisp files from my .emacs:
  http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/cygwin-mount.el
  http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/setup-cygwin.el

This is the code I put in my .emacs to do that. It says "If on Windows and
can successfully load `cygwin-mount.el[c]', then load `setup-cygwin.el[c]."

(if (and (eq system-type 'windows-nt)
         (require 'cygwin-mount nil t))
    (require 'setup-cygwin))

That's all. I don't run an X server. I don't tinker with anything. I have
several versions of Emacs that I use on the same machine, from Emacs 20.7
through 22.1, and they are all vanilla binaries - I just put them in
different folders and use different shortcuts to run them. I prefer vanilla
binaries to EmacsW32 (for myself), because I don't want a customized version
of Emacs - I do my own customizing.

I haven't encountered any incompatibilities or problems. I don't claim there
are none, but I haven't encountered any in years of use. AFAICT, things
"just work".

Again, I'm not arguing that this is the way to go for anyone else, but it is
super easy, and it works for me. HTH. YMMV.