3.13 When I run Emacs nothing happens

Emacs could have failed to run for a number of reasons. The most common symptom is that, when Emacs is started, the cursor changes for a second but nothing happens. If this happens to you, it is quite likely that the distribution was unpacked incorrectly.

Check for the following to see if there was a problem during unpacking:

1. Be sure to disable the CR/LF translation or the executables will be unusable. Older versions of WinZipNT would enable this translation by default. If you are using WinZipNT, disable it.
2. Check that filenames were not truncated to 8.3. For example, there should be a file CONTRIBUTE in the top level directory; if this has been truncated to CONTRIBU or CONTRI~1, your distribution has been corrupted while unpacking and Emacs will not start.

If it is still not working, send mail to the help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org mailing list, describing what you’ve done, and what you are seeing. (The more information you send the more likely it is that you’ll receive a helpful response.)