Thanks for giving a wider picture for what is going on.
let me first fix the PATH.

I noticed when I fired up cmd.exe and type aspell that it says
"aspell is not recognized as internal or external command",

so I went to the OS env var and added the location of aspell to the path
like this ";C:\Program Files\Aspell\bin\" with out the (""), since this is
the location I have to go to to fire up aspell. but when I go back to my
C:\Documents and Settings\unsername> and typ aspell, it still gives me the
same error as above.


On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 8:21 AM, Xah Lee <xahlee@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sam,
>
> load-path is not relevant. The relevant vars discussed is exec-path and the
> PATH env var.
>
> exec-path in emacs is the var that tells emacs which paths to search to
> locate external programs.
>
> The PATH env var serves similar function in the OS's shell. It must be set
> correctly.
>
> But also, emacs also needs to use the OS's PATH env var, and must inherited
> it correctly, as emacs does not always inherit it correctly due to various
> complications such as where or how you launched emacs, OS differences, etc.
>
> Emacs's load-path is a set of paths for emacs to locate elisp files. It is
> irrevalent here.
>
> i gave code in previous message on how you set exec-path and PATH.
>
> you gotta pay attention to details here if you want to use emacs.
>
> PS but note to emacs developers, it'd be really good to god damn include
> the essential unix utils as used by emacs. Their executable are tiny by
> today's standards, and saves huge amount of headache. In particular, spell
> checking is essential to emacs. On linuxes, all's peach n cream. But
> unfortunately, linux is used by minority however you count it. On OS X, it's
> also a pain with spell checking, as there are lots questions about getting
> it to work or how to use OS X's bundled spell checker that's far superior,
> yet nigh impossible to get emacs to use. On Windows, getting spell checking
> to work is a pain in the ass. Not possible unless you have fair degree of
> sys admin expertise and some emacs know how about all the path vars and
> mechanisms, AND, have the time to tech geek for fucking hours to get it to
> work (installing cygwin, dig into cygwin's interactions with OS, sundries
> minor compatibility issues, researching MinWGW and alternative unix binaries
> for Windows, dig into online forums ... ). Spell checking works out of the
> box on any commercial editor today.
>
>   Xah
> ∑ http://xahlee.org/
>
> ☄
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 1:51 PM, sam jesse <revrvr@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I am still trying to fix my spelling feature in emacs running on my
>> windows XP.
>> when I hit M-$ I get
>>
>> Starting new Ispell process [default] ...
>> apply: Searching for program: no such file or directory, aspell
>>
>> in the trace.
>>
>> I can run aspell from
>> C:\Program Files\Aspell\bin>
>>
>> I have
>> "C:/Program Files/Aspell" "C:/Program Files/Aspell/bin"
>> in my load-path
>>
>> and also I have aspell as the value of the variable ispell-program-name
>>
>> what am I missing?
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 10:10 AM, Xah Lee <xahlee@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> btw, recently someone posted a question about how to use hunspell.
>>>
>>> I'd very much interested in that... i did some 1 hour research on
>>> wikipedia about this in the past month... hunspell seems to be the
>>> best one and used in opera, firefox etc.
>>>
>>> anyone has tried to make it work with emacs?
>>>
>>>  Xah
>>> ∑ http://xahlee.org/
>>>
>>> ☄
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>  Xah
> ∑ http://xahlee.org/
>