Starting Scheme from Microsoft Windows - MIT/GNU Scheme 7.7.91
Description: MIT/GNU Scheme 7.7.91

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### 2.7 Starting Scheme from Microsoft Windows

The Microsoft Windows version of MIT/GNU Scheme runs as a graphics-based application. Scheme is normally started using shortcuts; the installer automatically generates several different predefined shortcuts for your convenience.

The rest of this section gives some tips on how to set up shortcuts that run Scheme. If you are unfamiliar with this concept you should read about it in the system help.

- Under Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP, shortcuts can be common or personal. When setting common shortcuts it is important to make the shortcut properties independent of the vagaries of the environment of the user who is running them.
- Give the shortcut an accurate Description.
- Include absolute pathnames to scheme.exe and bchschem.exe in the shortcut Command line.
- If you specify the --library command-line option then you do not have to worry about the MITSCHEME_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.
- Set the shortcut's Working Directory to something sensible. On Windows NT/2000/XP you can use %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH% to make Scheme start up in the user's home directory. On Windows 9x/ME you can use %HOME% to achieve the same effect, provided that you have set the HOME environment variable as we recommend.
- There are several icons available in the Scheme executable—choose one that best represents the options given on the command line.
- Specifying a band that contains Edwin is not sufficient to invoke the editor. You also have to put --edit at the end of the command line.