Hi,

I've just downloaded Miktex 2.9 from ctan (dante). There is no problem with
the installation (Windows XP Professional Version 2002 with SP3). But then I
can't compile any file. The reason is that I have no format files dumped on my
system (the installation procedure has not produced them).

Then I try to build all the formats from Maintenance/Settings/General/Update
Formats and I get the following error:

"The MikTeX configuration utility failed. Do you want to see the transcript?"

And transcript says:

miktex-makefmt: Unknown engine: etex
initexmf.EXE: The operation failed for some reason.
initexmf.EXE: Data: C:\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\miktex-makefmt.exe

And the same message (but with different engines) over and over again.

If I open a windows console and try to compile any tex file with pdflatex or
any other format, then I get the message:
"The pdflatex memory dump cannot be found" and indeed there is no such file on
my system. But then I cannot make such a format file either.

I've been using miktex from version 1 at least and the last working version on
my system was MikTeX 2.7.

Please, could you help me? Thanks

jlruiz

What do you get if you run on a command line

etex --version

and

pdftex --version

?

And how did you install miktex: basic or full version? Multiuser or single
user mode? Which account are you using?

Ulrike Fischer

Hi,

I've installed the full version with the admin account (the only one I use).
When I enter etex (pdftex) --version I get:

MiKTeX-pdftex 2.9.4307 (1.40.12) (MiKTeX 2.9)
Copyright (C) 1982 D. E. Knuth, (C) 1996-2006 Han The Thanh
TeX is a trademark of the American Mathematical Society

Maybe I should mention that I've installed the system on the directory
"C:\MikTeX 2.9" (and, of course, I have C:\mikTeX 2.9\miktex\bin in the PATH).

There is another issue I don't understand. I've also installed on another
computer with the same version of the operating system MikTeX 2.9 (maybe a
year and a half ago) on the directory C:\MikTeX2.9 (without spaces) and it
works fine.

Thanks,

Do you have any remains from older miktex installations? Did you include e.g.
an older local tree which could contain something that confuses miktex?
Check also the environment variables (with "set" on a command line) if there
is something from an older miktex.

Ulrike Fischer

Hi,

I've recently formatted my hard disk and installed the operating system anew.
But your're right, I've incorporated an old local TeX tree containing font
files and some macro tex files. I can take a look at this tree and I'll try to
take it out from MiKTeX. I'll tell you about the results.

Thanks

Hi,

Now I'm at home. I've taken out the local TeX tree and I've been able to redo
all formats and compile a file with pdflatex. All's OK. Then I've taken a look
at the contents of the local tree and I've found a directory containing a lot
of old format files! That was the origin of the problem. One lesson learned.

Thank you for the support!