[Gcl-devel] RE: [Axiom-developer] RE: GCL on Windows

[Page, Bill]

On Tuesday, December 14, 2004 9:32 PM C Y wrote:
> 
> Does the Windows version of Emacs require the HOME variable 
> to be set? I can't recall for certain but I seem to remember
> it looks for .emacs in HOME.
> 

I don't know about Emacs on Windows (never used it), but
other Linux programs ported to Windows that I have used
such as TeXmacs, GIMP, and arch do not define a HOME variable
however they do seem to all put their .files in the directory

  C:\Documents and Settings\username

This is a fairly reasonable choice for initialization files
which are not usually hidden and not edited directly by the
user but which are specific to a username. But unlike Linux,
this is not a particularly good choice as a place to store
user files since the Windows user has to perform some (usually
unfamiliar) navigation in the directory tree in order to find
this directory. On the other hand most users are immediately
familiar with the directory

  C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents

which appears as the 'My Documents' shortcut icon on their
desktop. This is the default location for the creation of
new user files. Novice windows users however may not be aware
that the above is it's full path name and that the 
My Documents directory of other users of the same machine
will be in a different path.

Regards,
Bill Page.