Re: Directory structure changes in Emacs installed on MS-Windows

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stephen Leake <address@hidden>
> Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2013 19:03:41 -0400
> 
> I gather we will just need %emacs_dir%/bin in Windows PATH (as we need
> now), not also %emacs_dir%/libexec/emacs/VERSION/i686-pc-mingw32 (emacs
> will put the latter in exec-path by default).

Yes, that's true.  This is done automatically at startup time.

> You left out:
> 
> (0) it simplifies the task of using the Posix configury
> 
> I think that's important.

It would be important if it were true, but I don't think it's true.
The way epaths.h is generated from epaths.in on Posix platforms leaves
the root of the Emacs installation tree (specified via --prefix)
hard-coded into the binary, and Emacs (AFAIK) currently doesn't
support relocation of the installation tree on Posix systems.  By
contrast, on Windows relocation is a matter of routine.  So I cannot
use the epaths-force target of the top-level Makefile anyway.

> > (2) it will become possible to have several Emacs versions installed
> > that can be invoked without any need to tweak PATH or rename the DOC
> > file; 
> 
> I don't follow this; there is only one place for emacs.exe. Currently I
> handle this by using a different %emacs_dir% for each emacs version.
> 
> I guess you could have %emacs_dir%/bin/emacs-VERSION.exe ? Does the
> Posix install do that (I've seen that convention for some tools).

Yes, the Posix install creates a symlink emacs-VERSION, and so will
the Windows one (except that instead of a symlink there will be a
copy).