Re: [h-e-w] Windows Vista M-x shell crash - start-process-internal problem

[Tom Popovich]

I have experienced similar errors in Vista.  NOTE:  OS WinXP and earlier work
fine. 

M-x getenv SHELL
M-x getenv COMSPEC
C-h v explicit-shell-file-name 
==>
  (getenv "SHELL") => nil

  (getenv "COMSPEC") => "C:\\Windows\\system32\\cmd.exe"

  explicit-shell-file-name => nil



First off in Vista the HOME (home environment variable) is not set by
default:  [This is not a problem, since
when I set it the same problem happens.]

Second SHELL seems to be ok as it is searching for COMSPEC which is properly
set; And below you will
see that calling XEmacs start-process-internal directly on the cmd or bash
shell binary fails.
[I thought there might be an issue with cmd so I downloaded bash to give
that a test.]


When I try to run (shell), no matter what shell filename is given to
start-process-internal,
we get errors in Vista.   Below you will see various ways I tried to specify
the path to the shell.


Try M-x shell   If that fails, then try the following lisp code uses non
interactive functions, so
you need to type ESC : instead of ESC x

OK, When I try M-x shell  we I get this stack dump
 Error:  Lisp error: (file-error "Searching for program" "Invalid argument"
"C:\\Windows\\system32\\cmd.exe")

 Stack Backtrace:
  ---------
  start-process-internal("shell" #<buffer "*shell*">
"C:\\Windows\\system32\\cmd.exe" "-i")
  apply(start-process-internal "shell" #<buffer "*shell*">
"C:\\Windows\\system32\\cmd.exe" "-i")
  start-process("shell" #<buffer "*shell*"> "C:\\Windows\\system32\\cmd.exe"
"-i")
  ---------


Looking further into the error,  it seems that start-process-internal is
broken, as I have
tried all sorts of ways to specify the filename to the binary below and all
attempts generate
this "Invalid argument" error.


TESTS:
------
First try M-x shell

When that failed debug further...

All the following fail:  Notice we use DOS and Unix style paths and cmd.exe
and bash.
I can run both from a cmd.exe DOS shell directly, when using the DOS style
pathnames,
Windows shell can only handle DOS style paths, the C-api can handle either
format.


Lets test start-process-internal fails.  e.g. do

  M-: (start-process-internal "shell" "*shell*"
"C:\\Windows\\system32\\cmd.exe" "-i")

also try:
   (start-process-internal "shell" "*shell*" "C:/Windows/system32/cmd.exe"
"-i")
   (start-process-internal "shell" "*shell*" "/Windows/system32/cmd.exe"
"-i")

   (start-process-internal "shell" "*shell*" "c:\\cygwin\\bin\\bash.exe"
"-i")
   (start-process-internal "shell" "*shell*" "c:/cygwin/bin/bash.exe" "-i")
   (start-process-internal "shell" "*shell*" "/cygwin/bin/bash.exe" "-i")

 All failed with the same error message: Invalid argument.


Euser12 wrote:
> 
> I've tried without customization and it doesn't work.
> 
> The link below mixes several issues and if you follow through the follow
> ups,
> they also were dealing with the same issue.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Jason Rumney-4 wrote:
>> 
>> Euser12 wrote:
>>> I don't think it is tcsh.exe.  I have also tried bash, sh, etc. with the
>>> same
>>> result.
>>>   
>> How about removing your customizations completely? Does it work then?
>> 
>>> I think it is the way Emacs is invoking the "process" that Vista doesn't
>>> like.
>>>
>>> Found this link referring to the same problem but no solution:
>>>
>>> http://calypso.tux.org/pipermail/xemacs-beta/2007-April/011079.html
>>>   
>> Wrong link? This is a configuration problem with XEmacs causing it to
>> access a non-existent disk at startup. Nothing to do with Emacs or
>> shells.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 

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