From: Phillip Gawlowski Date: 2011-02-27T12:46:37+09:00 Subject: Re: Windows 7 64-bit install On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 3:58 AM, Bob P. wrote: > Is there any advantage to a "manual" installation versus RubyInstaller > on Windows 7 64-bit? Are they mutually exclusive? Unless you want to set the path and the file associations by hand, you can use the RubyInstaller just fine. Given your background, I feel silly pointing out that "64 bit" means the CPU. Windows is fully capable of running 32 bit applications on a 64 bit OS (it's 16 bit applications that won't work, but they won't work on any other OS, too; it's a hardware 'limitation'). > If I do a "manual" install, what is the usual $TOPDIR in Windows 7? Whatever suits you best. C:\Ruby is the canonical installation directory for the RubyInstaller. > I'm a retired software engineer (nearly 50 years experience) so am not > afraid to do command line things, etc. I'm a little new to Windows, > having used mostly Linux for the past 10 years and many other OSs before > that. > > This is not a production environment. This is for my own amusement. Yes, > I enjoy programming just for fun in my retirement. I've played a bit > with Ruby on Linux. But I'm getting more used to Windows and want to > play with it here. You'll get a rather rough experience with Ruby on Windows, since the Ruby community is quite *NIX centric. That said, the RubyInstaller's DevKit takes away a *lot* of the hurt, since it provides a compiler toolchain (on demand, even!) similar to *NIX. Given that you are new to Windows, I'd simply use the RubyInstaller. It sets everything that needs to be set, and you are good to go from the command line. BTW: If you are used to *NIX-like command lines, use PowerShell. It follows many of the usual *NIX conventions, and has aliases corresponding to common *NIX tools (ls, grep, more, less). I have no idea if it is included in whatever edition of Windows 7 you are using, but it's available here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/dd742419.aspx -- Phillip Gawlowski Though the folk I have met, (Ah, how soon!) they forget When I've moved on to some other place, There may be one or two, When I've played and passed through, Who'll remember my song or my face.