When I run Emacs nothing happens
Emacs could have failed to run for a number of reasons. The most common symptom is that, when Emacs is started, the cursor changes for a second but nothing happens. If this happens to you, it is quite likely that the distribution was unpacked incorrectly.
Check for the following to see if there was a problem during unpacking:
- Be sure to disable the CR/LF translation or the executables will be unusable. Older versions of WinZipNT would enable this translation by default. If you are using WinZipNT, disable it.
- Check that filenames were not truncated to 8.3. For example, there should be a file CONTRIBUTE in the top level directory; if this has been truncated to CONTRIBU or CONTRI~1, your distribution has been corrupted while unpacking and Emacs will not start.
If it is still not working, send mail to the help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org mailing list, describing what you’ve done, and what you are seeing. (The more information you send the more likely it is that you’ll receive a helpful response.)