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Installing E 0.8.9 on Windows

Note: Although E seems to install fine on Win95, Win98 First Edition, WinNT, and Win2000, as explained here, it fails to install on Win98 Second Edition. This has not yet been diagnosed.

Installing The Java Runtime

See the Dependencies section for information on obtaining an appropriate version of Java and Swing.

Installing E

E releases through 0.8.4 had a rather manual install process involving unpacking into "c:/erights.org" and running various *.bat and *.pif files. Unfortunately, we've discovered that *.bat and *.pif files don't work reliably on across various configurations of Windows. Due largely to the stimulus of Mark Shepard (Thanks!), we have replaced the entire Windows installation process with an approach closer to something conventional. If you have installed a previous version of E, you probably should remove the directories "c:/erights.org" and "c:/Windows/Start Menu/Programs/erights.org".

For Windows users, we recommend downloading the zip of E binary distribution.

Unpack the distribution and double click on the file named "setup.exe". If you are unpacking using WinZip, it should notice the existence of a top level setup program and either prompt you to run it directly or provide an enabled "Install" button. Feel free to accept or press the button, or to decline and run Setup.exe yourself.

If the cursor is on the end of this line, just hit Enter. ?    

E Install Dir    C:/Program Files/erights.org
... more installation settings ...

ok?
    (default: "Y") ? _

When Setup runs, it will prompt you in a black MSDOS window for installation information. For all questions, you can accept the default by simply hitting the Enter key. On all systems, it should be safe to accept all the defaults. To install using other than the default settings, answer "n" to the above question, and proceed from there. We do not yet have an Uninstall program.

Once this is done, from your start menu you can start up E by selecting either the "Programs >> erights.org >> e" or the "Programs >> erights.org >>elmer" menu item. See the E Tutorial to make progress from here.