Installing and Uninstalling the Cygwin Unix Emulator

This document shows you how to install and uninstall the Cygwin Unix Emulator for Microsoft Windows. It is essential to install this environment if you want to run the GNU Tools under Windows instead of under Linux (their native environment).

If you encounter any problems with these instructions, you should at least read through the  Cygwin User’s Guide on this CD-ROM before consulting your lecturer or other competent help.

Please note that the Cygwin Unix Emulator does not provide all of the applications that are available in a typical Linux installation: only the most essential programs are included. In particular, your choice of a decent text editor is severely limited: either you need to use vi (shudder!) or you need to install a third-party text editor like TextPad. You cannot use the default Windows Notepad text editor.

In this document, something like “Start » Settings » Control Panel” means that you click on the Start button, select the Settings sub-menu and finally click on Control Panel. “$” will indicate the Cygwin shell prompt. Anything in a bold monospaced font is what you are expected to type in; an ordinary monospaced font is used for the computer’s response. Please note that this document doesn’t always show every response from the computer!

It is an unfortunate fact of life that every major version of Microsoft Windows behaves differently. This means that you may need to adjust these instructions to suit your version of Windows. These instructions have been verified for Windows 2000 Professional, Windows NT 4 and Windows 98SE only.

Minimum System Requirements

In order to successfully install and run the Cygwin Unix environment, you will need to meet at least the following requirements:

Installation Instructions

Installing the Cygwin Unix environment can be a little tricky, so take care to follow these instructions exactly. It might help you to print out and read through these instructions before proceeding… maybe it’s easier to run Linux!

1.	If you are running Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional, log in as Administrator. If you are running Microsoft Windows XP Home or Windows 98SE, simply log in.
2.	Run the Cygwin setup.exe program in the  gnutools/cygwin/win32 directory on this CD-ROM. A window will appear with an introduction.
3.	Click Next to skip the introduction, select “Install from Local Directory”, then click Next. The window will now show installation options.
4.	Make sure that the Root Directory is “C:\cygwin”, that “All Users” is selected in the group “Install For”, and that “Unix” is selected in the group “Default Text File Type”. Click Next. The window will change to show the package installation directory.
5.	Make sure the Local Package Directory is set to “D:\gnutools\cygwin\win32” (you may need to replace “D:” with the drive letter of your CD-ROM). Click Next. After a short delay, a listing of packages will appear in the installation window.
6.	Click on the (rather small) View button in the top right-hand corner until the word “Full” appears next to it. This will display a full listing of all packages. By the way, don’t try to “cheat” by selecting “Categories” — it does not work properly!
7.	Carefully work through the list of packages, one by one, clicking on the circular arrows (in the New column) so that no package shows “Skip” (in other words, so that every package shows a version number next to it).
8.	Check this list of packages again very carefully, then click Next. Cygwin will now be installed.
9.	Once the packages are installed, make sure that “Add Icon to Start Menu”, at least, is selected. Click Finish.
10.	You now need to add C:\cygwin\bin to your path. This procedure is, unfortunately, different for every major version of Microsoft Windows…
	For Windows NT 4: Start the Control Panel (Start » Settings » Control Panel), then double-click on the System icon. Now choose the Environment tab. Select the Path variable (in the System Variables section) by clicking on it. In the Value edit box, add C:\cygwin\bin; to the front of the variable definition — do not overwrite what is already there! Note the semicolon “;”: this separates path segments. Click the Set button, then OK. You can now close the Control Panel window and proceed to step 11.
	For Windows 2000: Start the Control Panel (Start » Settings » Control Panel), then double-click on the System icon. Select the Advanced tab and click on Environment Variables. Select the PATH variable (in the System Variables section), then click Edit. Add C:\cygwin\bin; to the front of the variable definition — do not overwrite what is already there! Note the semicolon “;”: this separates path segments. Click OK, OK and OK until you are back at the Control Panel. You can now close the Control Panel window and proceed to step 11.
	For Windows XP Home or Professional: Start the Control Panel (Start » Control Panel), select View » Classic View, then click on the System icon. Select the Advanced tab and click on Environment Variables. Select the PATH variable (in the System Variables section), then click Edit. Add C:\cygwin\bin; to the front of the variable definition — do not overwrite what is already there! Note the semicolon “;”: this separates path segments. Click OK, OK and OK until you are back at the Control Panel. You can now close the Control Panel window. If you are running Windows XP Home, proceed to step 13. If you are running Windows XP Professional, proceed to step 11 instead.
	For Windows 98SE: Start the Run dialog box (Start » Run, or the WIN+R key-press) and enter notepad c:\autoexec.bat. Click OK. When the editor window appears, add the following line to the end of the file:
	set PATH=C:\cygwin\bin;%PATH%
	Save the file (File » Save) and quit the editor (File » Exit). Now, restart your system (Start » Shutdown, then select Restart). Once the computer has restarted and you are logged back in, proceed to step 13.
11.	(For Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional only). You need to create the directory C:\cygwin\home and give all users full control over it. The procedure to do so is different under every version of Windows. In addition, depending on precisely how your version of Windows is set up, your users may already have full control over this to-be-created directory.
	For Windows NT 4: Open a Windows Explorer window (Start » Programs » Windows Explorer, or the WIN+E key-press). Create the directory C:\cygwin\home (File » New » Folder) and give all users full control over it. This is done by right-clicking the newly-created directory, selecting Properties, then the Security tab. Click Permissions, select the user “Everyone”, change the type of access to Full Control, then click OK. Now click OK to close the original dialog box.
	For Windows 2000: Open a Windows Explorer window (Start » Programs » Accessories » Windows Explorer, or the WIN+E key-press). Create the directory C:\cygwin\home (File » New » Folder) and give all users full control over it. This is done by right-clicking the newly-created directory, selecting Properties, then the Security tab. Click Add, select the user “Everyone”, then click OK. Highlight that user (in the original dialog box) and make sure all checkboxes are selected. Click OK to close the dialog box.
	For Windows XP Professional: [This version of the installation instructions has not been tested on Windows XP Professional. If you have successfully installed Cygwin under this version of Microsoft Windows, you might like to contact John Zaitseff by e-mail at J.Zaitseff@unsw.edu.au with the exact steps that you took to do so.]
	If you are a security-conscious system administrator, you will rightly balk when reading the above instructions. In such a case, simply create C:\cygwin\home\username for every user on your system and give each user full control over his or her directory only.
12.	If you are running Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional, give Everyone full control over the C:\cygwin\tmp, C:\cygwin\var\tmp and C:\cygwin\usr\tmp directories. Step 11 has all the necessary instructions…
13.	Open a Cygwin window for the first time (Start » Programs » Cygwin » Cygwin Bash Shell).
14.	Enter the following two commands:
	$  mkpasswd -l -g > /etc/passwd $  mkgroup -l > /etc/group
	(Please note that both command lines use a lower-case “L” for the option (“-l”), not the number “1“

Uninstallation Instructions

You will be relieved to know that uninstalling the Cygwin Unix Emulator is much easier than installing it! Simply follow these steps: