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Asked: 2026-05-12T19:18:18+00:00

I have been researching how to get Cygwin to work under emacs . I

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I have been researching how to get Cygwin to work under emacs. I have it working, but now I want to write a macro that will do the following:

  • Launch by typing M-x cygwin
  • Have the script stored in some obvious place (probably my .emacs file)
  • M-x shell
  • Rename the buffer to cygwin (or cygwin1, cygwin2, cygwin3, … if cygwin exists) probably using M-x rename-buffer
  • M-x ansi-color-for-comint-mode-on
  • M-x set-buffer-process-coding-system ‘undecided-unix ‘undecided-unix
  • Open and run cygwin

It will basically do all of the above steps. I think most of the organization for this little project is done. How do I tie it all together so I can just type M-x cygwin and see a happy new cygwin buffer? What exactly needs to be added to .emacs? Also, where exactly is .emacs in Windows?

I still want the ability to run M-x shell for the windows shell for now. I may also make similar macros for MSYS and ssh’ing to my Linux boxes. How do I get started?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Many questions, here are some answers:

    Your .emacs can exist many places, it depends, read here. In short try C-x C-f .emacs, or check the value of the variable 'user-init-file (C-h v user-init-file).

    I think the command you want is something along the lines of this:

    (require 'comint) ; this does require comint
(defun cygwin ()
  "do what i want for cygwin"
  (interactive)
  (let ((buffer (get-buffer-create (generate-new-buffer-name "cygwin"))))
    (pop-to-buffer buffer)
    (unless (comint-check-proc buffer)
      (apply 'make-comint-in-buffer (buffer-name buffer) buffer "c:/cygwin/Cygwin.bat"
             nil
             nil)
      (ansi-color-for-comint-mode-on)
      (set-buffer-process-coding-system 'undecided-unix 'undecided-unix))))

    Note: I directly ran the process Cygwin.bat instead of running shell and then starting that batch program. I believe the effect is the same, and more straight forward. I did choose the easy way out for naming the buffer (using 'generate-new-buffer-name) – you’ll want to customize to what you want.

    You can dump the above command in your .emacs easiest by doing the C-x C-f .emacs and pasting it in the buffer that gets opened up. Save it and restart (or do M-x eval-defun when your cursor is in the body of that command. Then M-x cygwin will run the command.

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