Re: New Installation under miktex, not working

[Aditya Mahajan <adityam@umich.edu>]

<--- On Jan 16, Mojca Miklavec wrote --->

> Todd DeVries wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm attempting to install context under miktex 2.4. I've updated the
>> format files and followed other instructions as per the contextgarden
>> discussions. I'm probably missing something really obvious and would
>> appreciate any help offered.  I receive this output when running the
>> following commands:
>
> I don't know why I keep using MikTeX (there are problems all the time,
> but it is [or at least it should be] easy to update and is already
> installed on most computers here), just some points:

I use latex a lot, and for windows+latex Miktex is one of the best 
distribution. Most of the packages get installed on the fly and it can 
be updated easily. Once you get used to it, it is hard to try other 
latex distributions.

> - texexec --make --all doesn't work anyway (well, it works, but it
> forgets to copy the files to the proper place)

It also happens with me and the solution that you describe below 
works. You need to update the formats from Miktex Options. I *guess* 
the reason texexec fails to place the format in proper place is 
because it simply does not know where the localtexmf tree is. I am not 
sure if it has a way of finding it out without the user specifying an 
environment variable.


> If you want to make formats, go to MikTeX options -> TeX formats ->
> choose cont-en -> Edit ...
> Here are the values that I have (it may be that I changed any of them
> manually, I don't remember):
> Format Name: cont-en
> Compiler: pdfe-TeX (Extended Mode)
> Input File Name: cont-en.tex
> Output File Name: cont-en.efmt
> Exclude has to be unchecked
>
> - MikTeX updates the formats automatically (if it does). If it
> doesn't, the "standard ConTeXt" ways fail anyway and searching for
> files doesn't always work either


> - I often have problems after upgrading ConTeXt, but I can hardly tell
> you what to do. I try all the different tricks (updating filename
> database, building the formats, ...) without any success, but after
> two days it simply works again by some black magic.


Here is what I do (I am not sure even if this is the correct thing to 
do, but seems to work)

Make a tree called pragma-texmf. Download cont-tmf.zip and 
cont-fnt.zip and unzip them in pragma-texmf. Go to MikTex options and 
add pragma-texmf as a tree. Move it up so that it is the first tree. 
This way whenever any program searches for a context related file, it 
finds it in the pragma-tree. Now go and recreate the formats. 
Everything works (well except mptopdf the program, but that is not 
critical for me). To keep in sync with context's pace of development, 
simply download the entire cont-tmf tree whenever a newer version is 
released. I have not managed to convince texsync to just download 
texmf tree, and I do not really care about downloading a big zip.

This makes me feel whether it is a good idea to have miktex and 
context for windows (from the pragma site) in parallel. I use cygwin 
and context for windows only seems to work from cmd.exe and not 
bash.exe. I tried to convert setuptex.sh to setuptex.bash, but could 
not get to work. So, I settled with the method of downloading the 
relevant trees and things work (by black magic, as you said)

Aditya