WINDOWS - Installing GNU LilyPond on Windows
********************************************

This document explains how to install the binary release for windows on a Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT or 2000 machine.

This release is a free extra service of the developers to assist windows users.  Please remember that we (the developers) rather dislike windows, and none of us use it.  Don't complain to us that installing LilyPond is too difficult; rather, if you know something about your Windows, send us code that works better (see compiling (compiling.html)).

Windows binary setup
====================

Apart from LilyPond itself, you need Cygwin, GUILE, Python and a TeX installation, but all this software be installed by running setup.exe:

LilyPond
     Download and run setup.exe (http://www.lilypond.org/gnu-windows/setup.exe) to install LilyPond.

     This will install the minimal set of cygwin tools needed to run LilyPond.  Make sure to install in the default place, c:/cygwin, and install everything.

     As of version 1.3.150, you also have the option to install MiKTeX and GSView from this installer, which is recommended.  If you choose to install these by hand (see below), make sure to install them before you install LilyPond, otherwise your LilyPond setup will be broken.

     If you already have cygwin installed, don't worry: nothing will be installed twice.  To expand on this minimal set, click here (http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/setup.exe), or visit a Cygwin mirror site (http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/mirrors.html).

Windows running setup
=====================

If you're lucky, after running setup.exe you're all set up.

Open a LilyPond shell (or any bash shell), and type

          lilypond --help

If you don't see something similar to

          Usage: lilypond [OPTION]... [FILE]...

          Typeset music and or play MIDI from FILE

          LilyPond is a music typesetter.  It produces beautiful sheet music
          using a high level description file as input.  LilyPond is part of
          the GNU Project.

          Options:
            -h,--help             this help
          [..]

you should try adding /usr/lilypond-x.y.z/bin to your PATH, do:

          PATH=/usr/lilypond-1.4.2/bin:$PATH

and try again.

Trouble
-------

For problems and solutions see Troubleshooting Windows (http://lilypond.org/wiki?TroubleshootingWindows)

Additional software
-------------------

LilyPond needs a number of software packages to be really useful.  These are included in the binary setup program (see above).

If you choose to install this additional software yourself, make sure you install LilyPond last, otherwise the LilyPond setup will be broken. Also note that this means that you will probably need to fix some PATH and TEX environment variables yourself.  If you think you can handle that, you may do so, but don't complain if it doesn't work.

These software packages are included in the LilyPond installation:

A full TeX installation.

     Currently, only MikTeX is supported.  Download and install MikTeX (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/miktex/miktex-2.0-lvl-1.zip), or visit www.miktex.org (http://www.miktex.org).

Ghostview.

     You can use GSView-2.6.  This old package has two advantages.  It has gsview and ghostscript bundeled, and it doesn't popup Register Now|Cancel windows all the time.  It doesn't work together with Yap to display PostScript specials.

     Click here (ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/ghostgum/gsv26w32.exe) to install GSView-2.6 (GhostView for Windows), or visit ftp.cs.wisc.edu (ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/ghostgum).

     You can also use the newer versions GSView-3.6 and GhostScript-6.50 If you install both these packages, Yap will display PostScript specials. You get annoying Register Now|Cancel popups, though.

     Click here (ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/ghostgum/gsv36w32.exe) for GSview and Click here (ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/AFPL/gs650/gs650w32.exe) for GhostScript. ftp.cs.wisc.edu (ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/ghost/ghostgum). or visit the Ghostview and GSview site.

[TODO:

* emacs-mode installation, figure out and describe proper emacs-on-cygwin setup.

]