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annotate runtime/doc/os_win32.txt @ 9999:2c5b2fc3a9f9
Added tag v7.4.2272 for changeset 3063d1acd0c968248b0621f0552cc2043d86645e
| author | Christian Brabandt <cb@256bit.org> |
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| date | Sat, 27 Aug 2016 20:45:05 +0200 |
| parents | 4c6ad81d41fe |
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1 *os_win32.txt* For Vim version 7.4. Last change: 2016 Mar 05 |
| 7 | 2 |
| 3 | |
| 4 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by George Reilly | |
| 5 | |
| 6 | |
| 7 *win32* *Win32* *MS-Windows* | |
| 8 This file documents the idiosyncrasies of the Win32 version of Vim. | |
| 9 | |
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10 The Win32 version of Vim works on Windows NT, 95, 98, ME, XP, Vista and |
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11 Windows 7. There are both console and GUI versions. |
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12 |
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13 The 32 bit version also runs on 64 bit MS-Windows systems. |
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15 There is GUI version for use in the Win32s subsystem in Windows 3.1[1]. You |
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16 can also use the 32-bit DOS version of Vim instead. See |os_msdos.txt|. |
| 7 | 17 |
| 18 1. Known problems |win32-problems| | |
| 19 2. Startup |win32-startup| | |
| 20 3. Restore screen contents |win32-restore| | |
| 21 4. Using the mouse |win32-mouse| | |
| 22 5. Running under Windows 3.1 |win32-win3.1| | |
| 23 6. Win32 mini FAQ |win32-faq| | |
| 24 | |
| 25 Additionally, there are a number of common Win32 and DOS items: | |
| 26 File locations |dos-locations| | |
| 27 Using backslashes |dos-backslash| | |
| 28 Standard mappings |dos-standard-mappings| | |
| 29 Screen output and colors |dos-colors| | |
| 30 File formats |dos-file-formats| | |
| 31 :cd command |dos-:cd| | |
| 32 Interrupting |dos-CTRL-Break| | |
| 33 Temp files |dos-temp-files| | |
| 34 Shell option default |dos-shell| | |
| 35 | |
| 36 Win32 GUI |gui-w32| | |
| 37 | |
| 38 Credits: | |
| 39 The Win32 version was written by George V. Reilly <george@reilly.org>. | |
| 40 The original Windows NT port was done by Roger Knobbe <RogerK@wonderware.com>. | |
| 41 The GUI version was made by George V. Reilly and Robert Webb. | |
| 42 | |
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43 For compiling see "src/INSTALLpc.txt". *win32-compiling* |
| 7 | 44 |
| 45 ============================================================================== | |
| 46 1. Known problems *windows95* *win32-problems* | |
| 47 | |
| 48 There are a few known problems with running in a console on Windows 95. As | |
| 49 far as we know, this is the same in Windows 98 and Windows ME. | |
| 50 | |
| 51 Comments from somebody working at Microsoft: "Win95 console support has always | |
| 52 been and will always be flaky". | |
| 53 1. Dead key support doesn't work. | |
| 54 2. Resizing the window with ":set columns=nn lines=nn" works, but executing | |
| 55 external commands MAY CAUSE THE SYSTEM TO HANG OR CRASH. | |
| 56 3. Screen updating is slow, unless you change 'columns' or 'lines' to a | |
| 57 non-DOS value. But then the second problem applies! | |
| 58 | |
| 59 If this bothers you, use the 32 bit MS-DOS version or the Win32 GUI version. | |
| 60 | |
| 61 When doing file name completion, Vim also finds matches for the short file | |
| 62 name. But Vim will still find and use the corresponding long file name. For | |
| 63 example, if you have the long file name "this_is_a_test" with the short file | |
| 64 name "this_i~1", the command ":e *1" will start editing "this_is_a_test". | |
| 65 | |
| 66 ============================================================================== | |
| 67 2. Startup *win32-startup* | |
| 68 | |
| 69 Current directory *win32-curdir* | |
| 70 | |
| 71 If Vim is started with a single file name argument, and it has a full path | |
| 72 (starts with "x:\"), Vim assumes it was started from the file explorer and | |
| 73 will set the current directory to where that file is. To avoid this when | |
| 74 typing a command to start Vim, use a forward slash instead of a backslash. | |
| 75 Example: > | |
| 76 | |
| 77 vim c:\text\files\foo.txt | |
| 78 | |
| 79 Will change to the "C:\text\files" directory. > | |
| 80 | |
| 81 vim c:/text\files\foo.txt | |
| 82 | |
| 83 Will use the current directory. | |
| 84 | |
| 85 | |
| 86 Term option *win32-term* | |
| 87 | |
| 88 The only kind of terminal type that the Win32 version of Vim understands is | |
| 89 "win32", which is built-in. If you set 'term' to anything else, you will | |
| 90 probably get very strange behavior from Vim. Therefore Vim does not obtain | |
| 91 the default value of 'term' from the environment variable "TERM". | |
| 92 | |
| 819 | 93 $PATH *win32-PATH* |
| 94 | |
| 95 The directory of the Vim executable is appended to $PATH. This is mostly to | |
| 5400 | 96 make "!xxd" work, as it is in the Tools menu. And it also means that when |
| 819 | 97 executable() returns 1 the executable can actually be executed. |
| 98 | |
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99 Quotes in file names *win32-quotes* |
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100 |
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101 Quotes inside a file name (or any other command line argument) can be escaped |
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102 with a backslash. E.g. > |
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103 vim -c "echo 'foo\"bar'" |
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104 |
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105 Alternatively use three quotes to get one: > |
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106 vim -c "echo 'foo"""bar'" |
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107 |
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108 The quotation rules are: |
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109 |
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110 1. A `"` starts quotation. |
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111 2. Another `"` or `""` ends quotation. If the quotation ends with `""`, a `"` |
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112 is produced at the end of the quoted string. |
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113 |
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114 Examples, with [] around an argument: |
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115 "foo" -> [foo] |
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116 "foo"" -> [foo"] |
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117 "foo"bar -> [foobar] |
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118 "foo" bar -> [foo], [bar] |
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119 "foo""bar -> [foo"bar] |
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120 "foo"" bar -> [foo"], [bar] |
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121 "foo"""bar" -> [foo"bar] |
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122 |
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123 |
| 7 | 124 ============================================================================== |
| 125 3. Restore screen contents *win32-restore* | |
| 126 | |
| 127 When 'restorescreen' is set (which is the default), Vim will restore the | |
| 128 original contents of the console when exiting or when executing external | |
| 129 commands. If you don't want this, use ":set nors". |'restorescreen'| | |
| 130 | |
| 131 ============================================================================== | |
| 132 4. Using the mouse *win32-mouse* | |
| 133 | |
| 134 The Win32 version of Vim supports using the mouse. If you have a two-button | |
| 135 mouse, the middle button can be emulated by pressing both left and right | |
| 136 buttons simultaneously - but note that in the Win32 GUI, if you have the right | |
| 137 mouse button pop-up menu enabled (see 'mouse'), you should err on the side of | |
| 138 pressing the left button first. |mouse-using| | |
| 139 | |
| 140 When the mouse doesn't work, try disabling the "Quick Edit Mode" feature of | |
| 141 the console. | |
| 142 | |
| 143 ============================================================================== | |
| 144 5. Running under Windows 3.1 *win32-win3.1* | |
| 145 | |
| 146 *win32s* *windows-3.1* | |
| 147 There is a special version of Gvim that runs under Windows 3.1 and 3.11. You | |
| 148 need the gvim.exe that was compiled with Visual C++ 4.1. | |
| 149 | |
| 150 To run the Win32 version under Windows 3.1, you need to install Win32s. You | |
| 151 might have it already from another Win32 application which you have installed. | |
| 152 If Vim doesn't seem to be running properly, get the latest version: 1.30c. | |
| 153 You can find it at: | |
| 154 | |
| 155 http://support.microsoft.com/download/support/mslfiles/pw1118.exe | |
| 156 | |
| 157 (Microsoft moved it again, we don't know where it is now :-( ). | |
| 158 | |
| 159 The reason for having two versions of gvim.exe is that the Win32s version was | |
| 160 compiled with VC++ 4.1. This is the last version of VC++ that supports Win32s | |
| 161 programs. VC++ 5.0 is better, so that one was used for the Win32 version. | |
| 162 Apart from that, there is no difference between the programs. If you are in a | |
| 163 mixed environment, you can use the gvim.exe for Win32s on both. | |
| 164 | |
| 165 The Win32s version works the same way as the Win32 version under 95/NT. When | |
| 166 running under Win32s the following differences apply: | |
| 167 - You cannot use long file names, because Windows 3.1 doesn't support them! | |
| 168 - When executing an external command, it doesn't return an exit code. After | |
| 169 doing ":make" you have to do ":cn" yourself. | |
| 170 | |
| 171 ============================================================================== | |
| 172 6. Win32 mini FAQ *win32-faq* | |
| 173 | |
| 174 Q. Why does the Win32 version of Vim update the screen so slowly on Windows 95? | |
| 175 A. The support for Win32 console mode applications is very buggy in Win95. | |
| 176 For some unknown reason, the screen updates very slowly when Vim is run at | |
| 177 one of the standard resolutions (80x25, 80x43, or 80x50) and the 16-bit DOS | |
| 178 version updates the screen much more quickly than the Win32 version. | |
| 179 However, if the screen is set to some other resolution, such as by ":set | |
| 180 columns=100" or ":set lines=40", screen updating becomes about as fast as | |
| 181 it is with the 16-bit version. | |
| 182 | |
| 183 WARNING: Changing 'columns' may make Windows 95 crash while updating the | |
| 184 window (complaints --> Microsoft). Since this mostly works, this has not | |
| 185 been disabled, but be careful with changing 'columns'. | |
| 186 | |
| 187 Changing the screen resolution makes updates faster, but it brings | |
| 188 additional problems. External commands (e.g., ":!dir") can cause Vim to | |
| 189 freeze when the screen is set to a non-standard resolution, particularly | |
| 190 when 'columns' is not equal to 80. It is not possible for Vim to reliably | |
| 191 set the screen resolution back to the value it had upon startup before | |
| 192 running external commands, so if you change the number of 'lines' or | |
| 193 'columns', be very, very careful. In fact, Vim will not allow you to | |
| 194 execute external commands when 'columns' is not equal to 80, because it is | |
| 195 so likely to freeze up afterwards. | |
| 196 | |
| 197 None of the above applies on Windows NT. Screen updates are fast, no | |
| 198 matter how many 'lines' or 'columns' the window has, and external commands | |
| 199 do not cause Vim to freeze. | |
| 200 | |
| 201 Q. So if the Win32 version updates the screen so slowly on Windows 95 and the | |
| 202 16-bit DOS version updates the screen quickly, why would I want to run the | |
| 203 Win32 version? | |
| 204 A. Firstly, the Win32 version isn't that slow, especially when the screen is | |
| 205 set to some non-standard number of 'lines' or 'columns'. Secondly, the | |
| 206 16-bit DOS version has some severe limitations: It can't do big changes and | |
| 207 it doesn't know about long file names. The Win32 version doesn't have these | |
| 208 limitations and it's faster overall (the same is true for the 32-bit DJGPP | |
| 209 DOS version of Vim). The Win32 version is smarter about handling the | |
| 210 screen, the mouse, and the keyboard than the DJGPP version is. | |
| 211 | |
| 212 Q. And what about the 16-bit DOS version versus the Win32 version on NT? | |
| 213 A. There are no good reasons to run the 16-bit DOS version on NT. The Win32 | |
| 214 version updates the screen just as fast as the 16-bit version does when | |
| 215 running on NT. All of the above disadvantages apply. Finally, DOS | |
| 216 applications can take a long time to start up and will run more slowly. On | |
| 217 non-Intel NT platforms, the DOS version is almost unusably slow, because it | |
| 218 runs on top of an 80x86 emulator. | |
| 219 | |
| 220 Q. How do I change the font? | |
| 22 | 221 A. In the GUI version, you can use the 'guifont' option. Example: > |
| 222 :set guifont=Lucida_Console:h15:cDEFAULT | |
| 223 < In the console version, you need to set the font of the console itself. | |
| 7 | 224 You cannot do this from within Vim. |
| 225 | |
| 226 Q. When I change the size of the console window with ':set lines=xx' or | |
| 227 similar, the font changes! (Win95) | |
| 228 A. You have the console font set to 'Auto' in Vim's (or your MS-DOS prompt's) | |
| 237 | 229 properties. This makes W95 guess (badly!) what font is best. Set an explicit |
| 7 | 230 font instead. |
| 231 | |
| 232 Q. Why can't I paste into Vim when running Windows 95? | |
| 233 A. In the properties dialog box for the MS-DOS window, go to "MS-DOS | |
| 234 Prompt/Misc/Fast pasting" and make sure that it is NOT checked. You should | |
| 235 also do ":set paste" in Vim to avoid unexpected effects. |'paste'| | |
| 236 | |
| 237 Q. How do I type dead keys on Windows 95, in the console version? | |
| 238 (A dead key is an accent key, such as acute, grave, or umlaut, that doesn't | |
| 239 produce a character by itself, but when followed by another key, produces | |
| 240 an accented character, such as a-acute, e-grave, u-umlaut, n-tilde, and so | |
| 241 on. Very useful for most European languages. English-language keyboard | |
| 242 layouts don't use dead keys, as far as we know.) | |
| 243 A. You don't. The console mode input routines simply do not work correctly in | |
| 244 Windows 95, and I have not been able to work around them. In the words | |
| 245 of a senior developer at Microsoft: | |
| 246 Win95 console support has always been and will always be flaky. | |
| 247 | |
| 248 The flakiness is unavoidable because we are stuck between the world of | |
| 249 MS-DOS keyboard TSRs like KEYB (which wants to cook the data; | |
| 250 important for international) and the world of Win32. | |
| 251 | |
| 252 So keys that don't "exist" in MS-DOS land (like dead keys) have a | |
| 253 very tenuous existence in Win32 console land. Keys that act | |
| 254 differently between MS-DOS land and Win32 console land (like | |
| 255 capslock) will act flaky. | |
| 256 | |
| 257 Don't even _mention_ the problems with multiple language keyboard | |
| 258 layouts... | |
| 259 | |
| 260 You may be able to fashion some sort of workaround with the digraphs | |
| 261 mechanism. |digraphs| | |
| 262 | |
| 263 The best solution is to use the Win32 GUI version gvim.exe. Alternatively, | |
| 264 you can try one of the DOS versions of Vim where dead keys reportedly do | |
| 265 work. | |
| 266 | |
| 267 Q. How do I type dead keys on Windows NT? | |
| 268 A. Dead keys work on NT 3.51. Just type them as you would in any other | |
| 269 application. | |
| 270 On NT 4.0, you need to make sure that the default locale (set in the | |
| 271 Keyboard part of the Control Panel) is the same as the currently active | |
| 272 locale. Otherwise the NT code will get confused and crash! This is a NT | |
| 273 4.0 problem, not really a Vim problem. | |
| 274 | |
| 275 Q. I'm using Vim to edit a symbolically linked file on a Unix NFS file server. | |
| 276 When I write the file, Vim does not "write through" the symlink. Instead, | |
| 277 it deletes the symbolic link and creates a new file in its place. Why? | |
| 278 A. On Unix, Vim is prepared for links (symbolic or hard). A backup copy of | |
| 279 the original file is made and then the original file is overwritten. This | |
| 280 assures that all properties of the file remain the same. On non-Unix | |
| 281 systems, the original file is renamed and a new file is written. Only the | |
| 282 protection bits are set like the original file. However, this doesn't work | |
| 283 properly when working on an NFS-mounted file system where links and other | |
| 284 things exist. The only way to fix this in the current version is not | |
| 285 making a backup file, by ":set nobackup nowritebackup" |'writebackup'| | |
| 286 | |
| 22 | 287 Q. I'm using Vim to edit a file on a Unix file server through Samba. When I |
| 288 write the file, the owner of the file is changed. Why? | |
| 289 A. When writing a file Vim renames the original file, this is a backup (in | |
| 290 case writing the file fails halfway). Then the file is written as a new | |
| 291 file. Samba then gives it the default owner for the file system, which may | |
| 292 differ from the original owner. | |
| 293 To avoid this set the 'backupcopy' option to "yes". Vim will then make a | |
| 294 copy of the file for the backup, and overwrite the original file. The | |
| 295 owner isn't changed then. | |
| 296 | |
| 7 | 297 Q. How do I get to see the output of ":make" while it's running? |
| 298 A. Basically what you need is to put a tee program that will copy its input | |
| 299 (the output from make) to both stdout and to the errorfile. You can find a | |
| 1125 | 300 copy of tee (and a number of other GNU tools) at |
| 7 | 301 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net or http://unxutils.sourceforge.net |
| 302 Alternatively, try the more recent Cygnus version of the GNU tools at | |
| 303 http://www.cygwin.com Other Unix-style tools for Win32 are listed at | |
| 304 http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/Unix/Win32/ | |
| 305 When you do get a copy of tee, you'll need to add > | |
| 306 :set shellpipe=\|\ tee | |
| 307 < to your _vimrc. | |
| 308 | |
| 309 Q. I'm storing files on a remote machine that works with VisionFS, and files | |
| 310 disappear! | |
| 311 A. VisionFS can't handle certain dot (.) three letter extension file names. | |
| 312 SCO declares this behavior required for backwards compatibility with 16bit | |
| 313 DOS/Windows environments. The two commands below demonstrate the behavior: | |
| 314 > | |
| 315 echo Hello > file.bat~ | |
| 316 dir > file.bat | |
| 317 < | |
| 318 The result is that the "dir" command updates the "file.bat~" file, instead | |
| 237 | 319 of creating a new "file.bat" file. This same behavior is exhibited in Vim |
| 7 | 320 when editing an existing file named "foo.bat" because the default behavior |
| 321 of Vim is to create a temporary file with a '~' character appended to the | |
| 322 name. When the file is written, it winds up being deleted. | |
| 323 | |
| 324 Solution: Add this command to your _vimrc file: > | |
| 325 :set backupext=.temporary | |
| 326 | |
| 327 Q. How do I change the blink rate of the cursor? | |
| 328 A. You can't! This is a limitation of the NT console. NT 5.0 is reported to | |
| 329 be able to set the blink rate for all console windows at the same time. | |
| 330 | |
| 331 *:!start* | |
| 332 Q. How can I run an external command or program asynchronously? | |
| 333 A. When using :! to run an external command, you can run it with "start": > | |
| 334 :!start winfile.exe<CR> | |
| 335 < Using "start" stops Vim switching to another screen, opening a new console, | |
| 336 or waiting for the program to complete; it indicates that you are running a | |
| 1624 | 337 program that does not affect the files you are editing. Programs begun |
| 7 | 338 with :!start do not get passed Vim's open file handles, which means they do |
| 339 not have to be closed before Vim. | |
| 340 To avoid this special treatment, use ":! start". | |
| 2859 | 341 There are two optional arguments (see the next Q): |
| 3513 | 342 /min the window will be minimized |
| 343 /b no console window will be opened | |
| 3082 | 344 You can use only one of these flags at a time. A second one will be |
| 2859 | 345 treated as the start of the command. |
| 346 | |
| 347 Q. How do I avoid getting a window for programs that I run asynchronously? | |
| 3082 | 348 A. You have two possible solutions depending on what you want: |
| 2908 | 349 1) You may use the /min flag in order to run program in a minimized state |
| 350 with no other changes. It will work equally for console and GUI | |
| 351 applications. | |
| 352 2) You can use the /b flag to run console applications without creating a | |
| 2859 | 353 console window for them (GUI applications are not affected). But you |
| 2908 | 354 should use this flag only if the application you run doesn't require any |
| 355 input. Otherwise it will get an EOF error because its input stream | |
| 3082 | 356 (stdin) would be redirected to \\.\NUL (stdout and stderr too). |
| 2859 | 357 |
| 358 Example for a console application, run Exuberant ctags: > | |
| 359 :!start /min ctags -R . | |
| 360 < When it has finished you should see file named "tags" in your current | |
| 361 directory. You should notice the window title blinking on your taskbar. | |
| 6180 | 362 This is more noticeable for commands that take longer. |
| 2859 | 363 Now delete the "tags" file and run this command: > |
| 364 :!start /b ctags -R . | |
| 365 < You should have the same "tags" file, but this time there will be no | |
| 366 blinking on the taskbar. | |
| 367 Example for a GUI application: > | |
| 368 :!start /min notepad | |
| 369 :!start /b notepad | |
| 370 < The first command runs notepad minimized and the second one runs it | |
| 371 normally. | |
| 7 | 372 |
| 373 Q. I'm using Win32s, and when I try to run an external command like "make", | |
| 237 | 374 Vim doesn't wait for it to finish! Help! |
| 7 | 375 A. The problem is that a 32-bit application (Vim) can't get notification from |
| 237 | 376 Windows that a 16-bit application (your DOS session) has finished. Vim |
| 7 | 377 includes a work-around for this, but you must set up your DOS commands to |
| 237 | 378 run in a window, not full-screen. Unfortunately the default when you |
| 379 install Windows is full-screen. To change this: | |
| 380 1) Start PIF editor (in the Main program group). | |
| 7 | 381 2) Open the file "_DEFAULT.PIF" in your Windows directory. |
| 382 3) Changes the display option from "Full Screen" to "Windowed". | |
| 383 4) Save and exit. | |
| 384 | |
| 385 To test, start Vim and type > | |
| 386 :!dir C:\<CR>". | |
| 387 < You should see a DOS box window appear briefly with the directory listing. | |
| 388 | |
| 237 | 389 Q. I use Vim under Win32s and NT. In NT, I can define the console to default to |
| 390 50 lines, so that I get a 80x50 shell when I ':sh'. Can I do the same in | |
| 7 | 391 W3.1x, or am I stuck with 80x25? |
| 237 | 392 A. Edit SYSTEM.INI and add 'ScreenLines=50' to the [NonWindowsApp] section. DOS |
| 7 | 393 prompts and external DOS commands will now run in a 50-line window. |
| 394 | |
| 6259 | 395 *windows-icon* |
| 396 Q. I don't like the Vim icon, can I change it? | |
| 397 A. Yes, place your favorite icon in bitmaps/vim.ico in a directory of | |
| 398 'runtimepath'. For example ~/vimfiles/bitmaps/vim.ico. | |
| 399 | |
| 400 | |
| 7 | 401 vim:tw=78:fo=tcq2:ts=8:ft=help:norl: |