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I can't find a clear tutorial for how to install GNU Emacs on Windows 10. Normally there are a few tricks required to get it running properly, so I thought I would ask here before trying one of the Windows 8 tutorials.

The specific “flavour” of Emacs is not particularly important.

andselisk
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Keith
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  • Welcome to Emacs.SE! This is not yet a good fit for the site because it is either straightforward (follow the [install instructions](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/download.html)) or too open-ended ("what tricks do I need")? Try installing and, if you run into specific problems, come back with discrete questions for the site. – Dan Mar 01 '17 at 18:33
  • Maybe the instructions you link to seem straight forward to you but not to me. On both the mirrors and the main page I am expected to know which file I want from the name alone. Maybe this is a simple request for somebody in the community but even giving the link to the install instructions helped. – Keith Mar 02 '17 at 21:24
  • Go for it, not much has changed since windows 8 for installing Emacs. – Emacs User Mar 02 '17 at 22:43
  • Can you at least tell me which zip file I should download? – Keith Mar 03 '17 at 04:56
  • There are more detailed instructions at https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/README – npostavs Oct 01 '17 at 21:42
  • Please clarify your question by incorporating your "Can you at least tell me which zip file I should download?" into it. – Stefan Oct 30 '19 at 12:12

2 Answers2

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Some third-party Windows package managers offer a straightforward installation of GNU Emacs on Windows 7+. Notes:

  • Chocolatey requires an administrative shell access, whereas Scoop does not and makes installation portable.
  • Both Chocolatey and Scoop install 64-bit Emacs on 64-bit host system.
  • Both Chocolatey and Scoop automatically create corresponding shims so that Emacs can be called from the console via emacs (GUI version) or emacs -nw (terminal session).

Chocolatey

Installation

Open elevated PowerShell and install the choco package manager, then install emacs package:

choco install emacs

Launching

By default an icon is added to the start menu and the launcher can be found at C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin\runemacs.exe.

Updating

choco update emacs

Removing

choco uninstall emacs

Scoop

Installation

Open PowerShell and install the scoop package manager, then add extras repo (you will need to install git and 7zip as well):

scoop bucket add extras

Install emacs package:

scoop install emacs

Launching

By default an icon is added to the start menu into the Scoop Apps folder and the launcher can be found at ~\scoop\apps\emacs\current\bin\runemacs.exe.

Updating

scoop update emacs

Removing

scoop uninstall emacs
andselisk
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    On Windows10: `emacs64 not installed. The package was not found with the source(s) listed.` -> with `emacs` it worked. – Andreas L. Jun 02 '21 at 14:40
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    @AndreasL. I appreciate your feedback! Many things have changed since I wrote this answer which I now have rewritten from the ground up thanks to your comment. Currently, `cinst emacs` already installs `emacs-27.2-x86_64.zip` on 64-bit systems, and support for `emacs64` appear to be dropped, so I deleted this portion as irrelevant. Also, I added an alternative package manager Scoop for completeness. – andselisk Jun 02 '21 at 16:14
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After reading many tutorials and readmes I was unable to install Emacs and spacemacs on my machine until now. It is super easy.

  1. create a folder in a directory you wish to install (eg I'd like to install on drive c:/
  2. add a new user variable named HOME and valued to the created folder (eg c:/emacs/
  3. download the latest version of Emacs
  4. extract the content of the downloaded file into the folder you have created a couple of steps ago. (eg c:/emacs/)
  5. open runemacs.exe located in c:/emacs/bin/ directory; this would generate a folder named .emacs.d in c:/emacs/

installing spacemacs

  1. quit Emacs
  2. download spacemacs
  3. extract the content in the c:/emacs/.emacs.d directory
  4. finally re-execute runemacs.exe.

I've learned about the instruction in this video

Stefan
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Esmaeil MIRZAEE
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    I think it's valuable to point out that HOME does not need to point to the place where you extract the content of your downloaded emacs zip file. – Stefan Oct 30 '19 at 12:17