can't open cygwin from shortcut

can't open cygwin from shortcut

[Doug McIlroy]

On a Microsoft Surface running CYGWIN_NT-10.0 version 2.4.1(0.293/5/3)
I cannot start Cygwin from the desktop shortcut. It fails to find
mintty. On failure, it proffers a browsing window focused on /bin.
Clicking on mintty in that window does not work. I can start
Cygwin via a Windows "run" request, however.

On a Dell desktop machine running CYGWIN_NT-6.3 version 1.7.34(0.285/5/3)
where the shortcut works, I see that the pathname in the shortcut
ends in mintty.exe. The .exe extension is missing in the 2.4.1
shortcut. Could this be the cause? If so, is there a convenient
way to edit a shortcut?

Doug McIlroy

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Re: can't open cygwin from shortcut

[John Ruckstuhl]

Hmmm, that name sounds familiar...
(googles "doug mcilroy unix")
Yep.
Just think of the karma for answering Prof. McIlroy's question... I
wish I could :)
Regards,
John Ruckstuhl

Douglas McIlroy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_McIlroy
Wikipedia
Malcolm Douglas McIlroy (born 1932) is a mathematician, engineer, and
programmer. As of 2007 he is an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science
at Dartmouth College. McIlroy is best known for having originally
developed Unix pipelines, ...

Malcolm Douglas McIlroy - Hotel Genius - Cat-v.org
genius.cat-v.org/doug-mcilroy/
Malcolm Douglas McIlroy. “The unsung hero of ... and other wonders.
Unix user name: doug(?) Unix commands created: spell, diff, sort,
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On Sat, Apr 23, 2016 at 8:26 AM, Doug McIlroy <doug@cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> On a Microsoft Surface running CYGWIN_NT-10.0 version 2.4.1(0.293/5/3)
> I cannot start Cygwin from the desktop shortcut. It fails to find
> mintty. On failure, it proffers a browsing window focused on /bin.
> Clicking on mintty in that window does not work. I can start
> Cygwin via a Windows "run" request, however.
>
> On a Dell desktop machine running CYGWIN_NT-6.3 version 1.7.34(0.285/5/3)
> where the shortcut works, I see that the pathname in the shortcut
> ends in mintty.exe. The .exe extension is missing in the 2.4.1
> shortcut. Could this be the cause? If so, is there a convenient
> way to edit a shortcut?
>
> Doug McIlroy
>
> --
> Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
> FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
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Re: can't open cygwin from shortcut

[Achim Gratz]

Doug McIlroy writes:
> On a Microsoft Surface running CYGWIN_NT-10.0 version 2.4.1(0.293/5/3)
> I cannot start Cygwin from the desktop shortcut. It fails to find
> mintty. On failure, it proffers a browsing window focused on /bin.
> Clicking on mintty in that window does not work. I can start
> Cygwin via a Windows "run" request, however.

Provided the link target of that shortcut is correct (see below), it
appears that Windows doesn't see mintty as an executable.

> On a Dell desktop machine running CYGWIN_NT-6.3 version 1.7.34(0.285/5/3)
> where the shortcut works, I see that the pathname in the shortcut
> ends in mintty.exe. The .exe extension is missing in the 2.4.1
> shortcut. Could this be the cause? If so, is there a convenient
> way to edit a shortcut?

The shortcut target should have a ".exe" suffix I think.  I just tried
removing the ".exe" suffix from my shortcuts and Windows keeps adding it
back on.  Unless something changed drastically, the only way for that
not happening I can see is if there was another file named mintty
(without extension) or if mintty wasn't executable in a way that Windows
can determine.

Shortcuts can be edited by opening the context menu on them and then
selecting "Properties".  I've never used anything Windows in touch mode,
so if you're using that I don't really know how to get there.  With the
mouse it's right-click on the symbol or selecting the symbol and then
pressing the "menu" key if your keyboard has one of those.  I guess the
easiest way would be to just check that Cygwin knows the file as
"/usr/bin/mintty.exe" and no other files starting with "mintty" exist in
that directory and edit the shortcut to match that.  If that doesn't
work, remove any "/usr/bin/mintty*" that do exist and re-install the
mintty package.


Regards,
Achim.
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Re: can't open cygwin from shortcut

[Brian Inglis]

Doug McIlroy writes:
> On a Microsoft Surface running CYGWIN_NT-10.0 version 2.4.1(0.293/5/3)
> I cannot start Cygwin from the desktop shortcut. It fails to find
> mintty. On failure, it proffers a browsing window focused on /bin.
> Clicking on mintty in that window does not work. I can start
> Cygwin via a Windows "run" request, however.
> 
> On a Dell desktop machine running CYGWIN_NT-6.3 version 1.7.34(0.285/5/3)
> where the shortcut works, I see that the pathname in the shortcut
> ends in mintty.exe. The .exe extension is missing in the 2.4.1
> shortcut. Could this be the cause? If so, is there a convenient
> way to edit a shortcut?

Not familiar with the Win 10 tablet interface, but if you select the icon on
the desktop or Start Menu, mouse right-click (or keyboard right hamburger
key) and the context menu shows a Properties item at the bottom: select that
to edit properties, (if necessary select Shortcut tab) and the Target
textbox should show something like "C:\Cygwin64\bin\mintty.exe -i
/Cygwin-Terminal.ico -", where C:\Cygwin64\ should be wherever you told
setup to make your Cygwin install root. Fix as appropriate. 

You can also Run that command directly. 

If that doesn't work, try a Search for "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch" and select Quick Launch when displayed;
Run: explorer "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch";
or if you can open a Command Prompt (cmd.exe) window, type:
start explorer "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch"; 
either of which should open a Windows Explorer window, and you can browse
down for Cygwin mintty shortcut, and edit using the context menu Properties
selection described above. 
You can also launch mintty directly by browsing to C:\Cygwin64\bin\mintty,
or C:\Cygwin64\bin\bash, which will then appear in a Command Prompt console
window. You can then type "cygstart mintty" to launch it properly. 

Sorry am unable to be more specific, but few of us shell aficionados are
likely to have (or want!) access to a Windows tablet, and a lot about the
environment comes under the heading "sh*t we shouldn't have to know!" ;^> 

N.B. Cygwin comes with a couple of utilities installed: readshortcut(1) and
mkshortcut(1) which allow you to work with shortcuts from the command line,
using either Cygwin or Windows paths. 
A useful Cygwin package to install is chere, which adds a mintty/bash
context menu item to Windows explorer, allowing you to launch a mintty
console bash shell with the selected folder as your current working directory. 



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Re: can't open cygwin from shortcut

[Doug McIlroy]

The nonworking "Cygwin64 Terminal" shortcut is indeed a bug in
CYGWIN_NT-10.0 version 2.4.1(0.293/5/3). Adding .exe to the
pathname for mintty fixes it. Thanks to Brian Inglis for telling
me how to do that.

Doug McIlroy

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