TeX Live 2008 Windows notes

Shortcuts

The installer adds some desktop shortcuts and a Tex live menu with shortcuts for the TeX Live Manager and some documentation, among other things. As always, these shortcuts are just a convenience. You can move or remove them without losing any functionality.

The PS_View desktop shortcut can be used to drop PostScript- and pdf files onto for viewing.

Searchpath

The most important change to the system is that TeX Live adds the directory of its own binaries to the searchpath. If it detects another TeX on the old searchpath then it removes that path from the searchpath. The installer writes both the old and the new searchpath to a logfile, which can be found at the root of the installation, e.g. c:\Program Files\texlive\2008\install-tl.log.

If you installed for running from dvd then a second environment variable TEXMFCNF will have been defined. See the TeX Live manual section 3.4.5 for details.

Multiple TeX installations

The various command-line programs of TeX must be findable via the searchpath. This means that you cannot have more than one functional TeX installation on your system. Switching from one to the other requires at least changing the searchpath.

Windows 2000

Under Windows 2000, there is a chance that the installer fails to open. If that happens, try the installer in text mode, e.g.

d:\install-tl -no-gui

We have been unable to find the cause of the GUI crashes under Windows 2000.