Thank you for your effort to develop an easy-installable package for Octave on Windows. Today I tried to install it, but unfortunately it did not work out: This is what I did (in Windows 98):
1) Download octave-windows-2000oct25d.exe
2) Start this program. Let it install things in the default "c:\Program files\gnu\octave"
3) click on the icone for "octave.bat". This results in an MS-DOS box with the message that the program could not be found.
"\Program files\gnu\octave\octave.bat" had the following contents:
@echo off
:: ..generated by GNU Octave setup.bat
if not exist \tmp\nul mkdir \tmp
"119 10-26-00 11:43a Directory.bat\bin\bash" --login start
rd \tmp
The line with "119 10..." is probably not right.
Furthermore, there are the following (potential) problems:
1) The names of the files in "...\octave\bin" are all in upercase. However, bash is case sensitive and
expects lower-case file names.
2) The installer does not put "...\octave\bin" in the path. As a result, bash will not find the programs
in this directory.
With some tweaking I succeeded in running RXVT.EXE. However, this results in a window that opens very briefly, and then diappears without leaving any traces.
I hope that this report is helpful for you.
Paul Huygen
FWIW, on my NT box (NT4.0 SP5), \Program files\gnu\octave\octave.bat is:
:: ..generated by GNU Octave setup.bat
@echo off
cd "D:\PROGRA~1\GNU\OCTAVE\\bin"
if not exist \tmp\nul mkdir \tmp
bash --login start
rd \tmp
Have you tried running 'octave' at a command (DOS) prompt? I found I could do THAT without \octave\bin in my path. I guess the "cd" makes it OK not to have a path to \octave\bin in that case, perhaps because "." is in the path for the command processor. But via the shortcut I DID need it.
[I had to modify my path by hand. To be fair, the installation probably tried to do this but I do not have admin permissions.]
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The installer is spoiled. To make it work:
1) Run Windows in safe mode (F8 during startup).
2) Install Octave. When it asks you if you want to run
batch file, kill installer (otherwise important files will
be deleted). Reboot to normal mode.
3) Go to your Octave directory. Edit setup.bat. Change line
95 to:
set octavedir=C:\progra~1\gnu\octave\ (change this if you installed to different dir).
4) Run setup.bat.
Now Octave should work.
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This was the file generated by the installer on my computer (Win2000):
C:\PROGRA~1\GNU\Octave>type octave.bat
@echo off
:: ..generated by GNU Octave setup.bat
if not exist \tmp\nul mkdir \tmp
"\bin\bash" --login start
rd \tmp
Result:
Path not found error.
Yours, Gbor BORGULYA