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I tried to set up my .emacs init file in the locations recommended by this website, but both seem to be either not doing anything or warning me the location of .emacs there is deprecated:

c:\Documents and Settings\user\Application Data\.emacs

Where should I set the init files in emacs to have it working on Windows 7?

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Do the answers to this question help? –  legoscia Mar 26 '13 at 10:22

2 Answers 2

I found out the best way is from a previous question: execute M-x customize and check where is the customization saved. In my computer, it turns out the directory is:

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Another solution outside of customize is to define your %HOME% environment variable to point to a folder that is not obfuscated far deep in the local user "roaming" files.

  • windows key + pause / advanced system settings / Evironment variables:
  • add a new variable for the current user
  • name it HOME
  • set its value to a folder (existing, e.g. c:\seki), that will be mapped to the ~ directory where Emacs puts its files by default, e.g. ~/.emacs
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