Question

I don’t like Vimball files in Vim but more and more plugins use Vimball to install themselves.

A month ago I installed a 64 bits OS and moved my vimfiles directory to c:\users\”my-name”
No problem. Everything works fine.

Today I wanted update a plugin (which is now in Vimball).

After sourcing the plugin (:so %)
I received a lot of errors:

Error detected while processing function vimball#Vimvall..vimball#VimballHome:  
E739: Cannot create directory C:/Progra~1/Vim/vimfiles  
Error detected while processing function vimball# Vimball..<SNR>119_ChgDir:  
E344: Can't find directory "C:\Progra~1\Vim\vimfiles in cdpath  
E472: Command failed   

…and so a whole page more of these kind of errors.

What’s happening and how can I resolve it?

Answer 1

Vimballs are extracted into the first existing directory on 'runtimepath'; based on your output, is looks like Vim doesn’t recognize the location where you moved your vimfiles to, and instead defaults to the system-wide C:/Progra~1/Vim/vimfiles location, which probably is protected by Windows permissions, thereby causing the errors.

Check the output of :set runtimepath?; the first component should be your C:\Users\my-name\vimfiles; if it isn’t, you need to make Vim include it, either via external means (e.g. setting the HOME environment variable), or directly in your ~/.vimrc with :set runtimepath=.... See :help runtimepath for details.

Also, check for g:vimball_home; this Vimball configuration overrides the default logic.

As a workaround (not a solution), you can pass a custom install directory to the :UseVimball command.