Re: [h-e-w] How to tell (windows) emacs which ftp.exe,ediff.exe,grep.exe... files to use

[David Vanderschel]

On Monday, March 03, "Neil J Mackie" <address@hidden> wrote:
>Michael asked::

>>>Has anyone done this as a single icon for double-clicking convenience?

>Someone has and I have used it. My desktop shortkut to emacs is a shortcut
>to

>"C:\Program Files\emacs-21.2\bin\assoc.cmd"

> ...

I believe the implied suggestion by Neil to use this
is poor advice.  Indeed, back in 2000 I posted an
extensive bit of advice on gnuserv, a relevant portion
of which is quoted below.

Regards,
  David V.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Vanderschel" <address@hidden>
To: <address@hidden>
Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2000 4:44 PM
Subject: gnuserv: Various Tips for Fully Exploiting this Functionality


...

The ntemacs Web page says, "Jerrad Pierce <address@hidden> has
packaged together a PIF file and batch file for associating Emacs with
file-types via gnuserv."  As far as I am concerned, none of that stuff
should be used.  It serves no useful purpose that I can determine, and
it definitely slows things down.  In particular, it is gnuclient.exe
itself which should be associated with files, not assoc.bat.  The only
apparent 'feature' of assoc.bat is that it will start emacs if it is
not already running (as inferred by the fact that gnuclient exits with
an error).  This is not only unnecessary, but it is also confusing, as
gnuclient or gnudoit will itself invoke runemacs when no instance of
emacs (with gnuserv) is already running.  (It is conceivable that
Pierce had earlier versions of the client programs which did not know
how to start emacs or that he failed to realize the capability was in
there because he had a configuration in which gnuclient could not find
runemacs.  For the latter, it suffices for both of them to be in the
same directory or for runemacs and emacs to be in your path.)


...