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== [[GnuCash]] on Microsoft Windows ==
+
= [[GnuCash]] on Microsoft Windows =
  
−
This page collects various notes about potentially compiling [[GnuCash]] on Microsoft Windows.
+
This page collects various notes about running [[GnuCash]] on Microsoft Windows.
  
−
FAQ: Is it possible to compile GnuCash on Windows? A: Currently, no. However, with the 1.9.x/2.0.0 series now being released, gnucash is fully based on gtk2. This means it will probably be rather easy to finish a full windows port. "The other big application" Gnumeric already showed how to do it. Their UI code relies solely on gtk-2.0 (or 2.2 or whatever), i.e. they replaced every dependency on libgnomeui by its gtk equivalent. And gtk-2.2 is fully available on windows. Obviously they managed to do this somehow, so I suspect it shouldn't be too difficult to do the same with gnucash. Also, one of our smaller competitors, Grisbi http://sourceforge.net/projects/grisbi , is offering a windows port by this very same strategy.
+
=== Q: Which Windows versions are supported? ===
 +
;Answer: The [{{URL:www}}/download.phtml download page] shows, which Windows version is officially supported by which GnuCash version.
 +
:;Note: ''Windows 3/95/98/Me'' and ''Windows NT3.5/4.0'' have never been supported.
  
−
Recent gnucash-devel discussion:
+
=== Q: Where is the binary installer? ===
−
* https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-March/016916.html
+
'''A:''' The latest versions can be downloaded from the [{{{{URL:www}}}}/download.phtml download] page on the GnuCash website. Anyone who cares about their data should use the '''released version''' found there.
 +
:People looking to test new features - at the risk of running into extra bugs - could try a '''test version''':
 +
:* As it is not so easy to build GnuCash under Windows, a daily build of the [{{URL:Build:Win}} stable branch] is made available as well to '''test''' bugfixes.
 +
:* To closely follow development on the ''future branch'', which contains new features - and bugs - there are the [[#Q:_Are_there_nightly_builds.3F|nightly builds]]. Expect data loss if you try these though!
  
−
Older gnucash-devel discussion:  
+
=== Q: Is it possible to compile GnuCash on Windows? ===
−
* https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-February/016646.html
+
'''A:''' Yes. It's cumbersome, but possible. See the instructions in [[Building_on_Windows| Building on Windows]].
−
* https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-February/016647.html
 
−
* https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2005-April/012916.html
 
−
* http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnome.apps.gnucash.devel/12615
 
  
−
Status: It is possible to compile, but it doesn't run so far. --[[User:Cstim|Cstim]] 07:55, 3 March 2006 (EST)
+
=== Q: Are there nightly builds? ===
 +
'''A:''' We run nightly builds for the '''stable''' (former <q>maint</q>) and after implmenting its first feature the '''future''' (former <q>master</q>) branch, but it's configured so that it runs only if changes have been pushed since the last build and only if the build is successful; they do fail from time to time. You can find the last 6-12 month's worth of builds at
 +
{{BuildURL}}/builds/win32/
 +
or, more specifically, for [{{URL:Build:Win}}?C=M;O=D stable], on demand for [{{URL:Build:Win|future}}?C=M;O=D future], and [{{URL:Build:Win|build-logs}}?C=M;O=D logs for all builds].
  
−
== Prerequisites ==
+
The product of the nightly builds is a Windows installer that will ''replace your existing GnuCash installation''. The future branch ''really is unstable'': Be sure to have suitable backups and don't use it for your "production" books.
  
−
=== Mingw32 ===
+
=== Q: Anything else? ===
−
See http://www.mingw.org . All available as pre-compiled binaries.
+
To avoid making the installer file even bigger, some functionality is not available without further downloads and installations of software.
  
−
Many other pre-compiled binaries are also available from http://gnuwin32.sf.net/ . (All gtk-related packages like pkgconfig and libxml2, however, are already included in the large glade package, see below.)
+
==== Preferences in GnuCash 2.6 and more recent ====
 +
gconf has been replaced with another preferences system. On Windows you
 +
will find the preferences directly in the Windows Registry under the
 +
registry key
 +
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER/software/GSettings/org/gnucash/
  
−
=== SVN ===
+
==== Pdf name for invoices ====
−
There are multiple [[Subversion|SVN]] clients for windows.  The command-line program is in the http://subversion.tigris.org package. A GUI client that installs as a plugin to the Windows Explorer is on http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org .
 
  
−
=== guile ===
+
This name is controlled by two hidden preferences:
−
In guile-1.6.7 several tweaks were necessary to get it to compile.
+
* pdf-export/filename-format
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* File libguile/fports.c line 479: replace "#elif defined(FIONREAD)" by "#elif 0"
+
* pdf-export/filename-date-format
−
* File libguile-ltdl/raw-ltdl.c lines 220, 222, 224: remove the LT_GLOBAL_DATA macro on each line. You might need to touch libguile-ltdl/upstream/ltdl.c.diff afterwards
 
−
* Files srfi/Makefile, libguile-ltdl/Makefile, libguile/Makefile: Add "-no-undefined" argument to libxyz_LDFLAGS variables, see also [http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/index.php?func=detailitem&item_id=15972]
 
−
* Remove every occurence of fileblocks.* in config.status and run config.status.
 
−
* Set the env variable GUILE_LOAD_PATH to the actual load path, which is different from the one that was stored during compile due to mingw's path translation. Make e.g. <tt>export GUILE_LOAD_PATH='\msys\1.0\local\share\guile\1.6'</tt>
 
−
* For some srfi's, shared libraries are installed in $prefix/bin, e. g. libguile-srfi-srfi-13-14-v-1-1.dll. You need to copy these DLLs at the same location to a filename that does not have the ''last trailing "-1"'', which in this case is libguile-srfi-srfi-13-14-v-1.dll. On Linux, this would have been done by symlinks, but on windows due to the missing symlinks you have to do this copying yourself.
 
  
−
One possible set of configure arguments looked like this:
+
Both of them will reside in the registry under
 +
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/software/GSettings/org/gnucash/dialogs/general/report
  
−
./configure --disable-elisp --disable-networking --disable-dependency-tracking --disable-libtool-lock --disable-linuxthreads -C --prefix=/usr/local LDFLAGS="-L/lib -L/mingw/lib -L/C/WINNT/system32 -lwsock32 -lregex"
+
These won't be there by default (only values that deviate from the default
 +
value will be effectively in the registry). To change it you will first
 +
have to create a sub key named '''pdf-export''.
  
−
For testing, first try to make sure "guile -v" will run and give you the version number. Then try a simple expression, like "guile  -c '(display %load-path)'". However, so far I was unable to actually start the interactive interpreter (by simple "guile") because the readline library is unavailable. So running "guile" will give "ERROR: In procedure quasiquote: ERROR: Unbound variable: SIGBUS".
+
Under this key you can create two string type keys named '''filename-format'''
 +
and '''filename-date-format'''.
  
−
With the above DLL copying of srfi-13-14, code generation in g-wrap will actually work. It will will always show the error message "command 'indent' not found", though, but this can simply be ignored.
+
This is the definition of these two string keys:
 +
;filename-format
 +
:This setting chooses the file name for PDF export. This is a sprintf(3) string with three arguments: "%1$s" is the report name such as "Invoice". "%2$s" is the number of the report, which for an invoice report is the invoice number. "%3$s" is the date of the report, formatted according to the filename-date-format setting. (Note: Any characters that are not allowed in filenames, such as '/', will be replaced with underscores '_' in the resulting file name.)<br/>The default value is %1$s-%2$s-%3$s
  
−
=== g-wrap ===
+
;filename-date-format
−
See http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/index.php?func=detailitem&item_id=15972 and the LDFLAGS=-no-undefined has to be added also to guile/g-wrap/gw/Makefile.
+
:This setting chooses the way dates are used in the filename of PDF export. Possible values for this setting are "locale" to use the system locale setting, "ce" for Continental Europe style dates, "iso" for ISO 8601 standard dates , "uk" for United Kingdom style dates, and "us" for United States style dates.
  
−
Status: Compile is possible.
+
==== Finance::Quote ====
 +
For the retrieval of [[Online Quotes]], you will need to install [{{URL:wp}}Perl Perl] and Finance::Quote (F::Q). See [[Online_Quotes#Installing_Perl_on_Windows|Installing Perl on Windows]].
  
−
Frequent error: If you get the following linker error:
+
= Notes =
−
C:/msys/1.0/mingw/bin/../lib/gcc/mingw32/3.4.4/libgcc.a(w32-shared-ptr.o)::
+
== Error messages, Trace file ==
−
undefined reference to `_imp__GetAtomNameA@12'
+
In the GnuCash application, all error messages are redirected to a ''trace file''. There will be one trace file for each time GnuCash is run. For a user named "myname" these files are located in the folder
−
undefined reference to `_imp__FindAtomA@4'
+
* <tt>c:\Documents and Settings\myname\Local Settings\Temp</tt> (Windows XP) or
−
undefined reference to `_imp__AddAtomA@4'
+
* <tt>C:\Users\myname\AppData\Local\Temp</tt> (Windows Vista/7).
−
undefined reference to `_imp__FindAtomA@4'
+
They are named
−
then it means that your windows DLL directory showed up first before your mingw DLL directory, i. e. the gcc linker command has -Lc:\WINNT\system32 before -L/mingw/lib. This wrong order might be caused from other, linked-in libraries, like from the libguile.la file in guile's library installation. To fix this: Edit the libguile.la file, remove -Lc:\WINNT\system32 so that you can correctly enfore that /mingw/lib comes first in the library search path.
+
* <tt>gnucash.trace.ABCDEF</tt> (GnuCash 2.2.9 and older) or
 +
* <tt>gnucash.trace.ABCDEF.log</tt> (GnuCash 2.4.0 and newer)
 +
where the ABCDEF part is changed randomly on each start of gnucash. See also [[Tracefile]].
  
−
Later, if you encounter the error ''ERROR: file: "libgw-guile-standard", message: "can't open the module"'' then you need to locate the file libgw-guile-standard-0.dll in your g-wrap installation and copy it to the file name libgw-guile-standard.dll, i. e. without the trailing "-0". The DLL is probably located in the bin directory of your g-wrap installation. (If it's not and you still encounter this error, you might consider copying the DLL into the bin directory, too.)
+
If you experience crashes or unexpected behavior, check the latest of these files (or the one created when the problem started) and add all interesting-looking lines of that file to your error reports, at least the lines with the keywords <tt>WARN</tt>ing and <tt>CRIT</tt>ical warning.
  
−
=== glade ===
+
See also [[Windows Debugging]].
−
http://gladewin32.sourceforge.net
 
−
This project offers a large (10MB) Installer which also includes all the rest of the gtk/glib platform, including pkgconfig, libxml2 and various other tools.
 
  
−
Note: After installation, the pkgconfig files have to be adapted to your installation path. See below in the gnome section for instructions.
+
== Determining the locale ==
 +
When asked for the locale, take a look at the Regional Settings in your Control Panel and report the values found for "Standard and Formats", "Location" and "Language for non-Unicode programs".
  
−
=== glib ===
+
Also, use [{{BugURL}}/show_bug.cgi?id=450353 this  bug's] [{{BugURL}}/attachment.cgi?id=90557 attachment] to determine the locale as used internally by gettext.
−
http://www.gtk.org/download/ has binary windows packages, but the binary is already included in the glade installer above, so no separate download is necessary.
 
  
−
=== gnome ===
+
= Problems, issues, comments =
−
A lot of windows binaries for gnome packages missing in the glade package can be found at ftp://ftp.gnome.org.
+
For any problem that occurs now, you should add a new section below.
  
−
GConf, Orbit2, gail, gnome-{common, mime-data, vfs}, intltool, libIDL, libart_lgpl, libbonobo{,ui}, libgnome{,canvas,ui} and pango can be found at:
+
== Issues with older versions of GnuCash ==
  
−
* ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/platform/2.12/2.12.2/win32/ (probably more stable)
+
In an effort to keep the information somewhat manageable this page will only gather issues with the current stable version of GnuCash. For historical reference, the older issues will be moved to [[Windows/Old Issues|a separate page]].
−
* ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/platform/2.13/2.13.92/win32/ (newer)
 
  
−
Libgnomeprint, libgnomeprintui and libgtkhtml can be found at:
+
If you experience issues with an older version of GnuCash, the first advice is normally to try again with the current stable version. There may however be situations where you need to revive an older version and in that case the information kept on the [[Windows/Old Issues|older issues page]] may be useful.
  
−
* ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/desktop/2.12/2.12.2/win32/ (probably more stable)
+
In addition, if you experience any of the older issues in the current stable release of GnuCash, please [[Bugzilla|file a bug report]] or ask about it on the [[Mailing Lists|user mailing list]].
−
* ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/desktop/2.13/2.13.92/win32/ (newer)
 
  
−
====GConf====
+
== Known issues ==
−
After installation of gconf, check whether you can run the "gconftool-2.exe" program. If it doesn't show its usage message but instead fails with an error like "cannot find symbol freeaddrinfo in WS2_32.DLL", then your DLL of ORBit cannot be used on your system. In my case this error went away after upgrading ORBit to 2.13.3.
+
Here is a list of the most often mentioned Windows issues. If you experience this problem, please check the respective bugzilla reports for potential workarounds.
 +
* {{BugURL}}/show_bug.cgi?id=466512 Win32: Wrong permissions for .gnucash directory (was: Win32 GnuCash 2.2.1 Fails to Start/Install)
 +
* {{BugURL}}/show_bug.cgi?id=645273#c40 Reports features do not work
  
−
====Paths in pkgconfig files====
+
== Windows 7 64-bit - GnuCash fails to run ==
−
Important note: After installation of all these packages, you need to hand-edit all pkgconfig files in your $prefix/lib/pkgconfig directory. All of them will have a wrong <tt>prefix=</tt> line, because it contains the path at build time instead of your installed path at installation time. One easy way to do this is the following perl command, with your glade/gnomeui/etc installation at <tt>C:\GTK2-8-10</tt> :
 
−
perl -pi.bak -e's!^prefix=.*$!prefix=C:/GTK2-8-10!' *.pc
 
−
which will modify all pkgconfig files in-place. After that, two additional files will still have paths from build-time, namely pangocairo.pc and pangoft2.pc, where the line with <tt>Cflags:</tt> has an include directive pointing to a build-time directory. Replace the <tt>/home/ivan/cross/build/include</tt> by <tt>${includedir}</tt> and everything should be fine.
 
  
−
== Gnucash ==
+
This is with GnuCash 2.4.3:
−
Initial notes about how to tweak ./configure so that it doesn't complain about the missing gnome packages (but eventually everything is written down in the text below):
 
−
* https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-March/016883.html
 
−
* https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-March/016751.html
 
−
* https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-February/016647.html
 
  
−
(As gnucash uses symbolic links quite a lot, in the first build trials we used a trick to make use of symlinks: We completed a normal build on a SMB networked filesystem from a Linux computer, and then accessed that very same directory from windows. This way, the symlinks appear as normal directories from windows. However, this doesn't work with the g-wrap wrapper generator, so this simplification cannot be used. See below for instructions on the symlinks.)
+
Starting GnuCash shows the splash screen and the tip of the day for a brief instant and then it disappears. To fix the problem, I did:
  
−
=== Build Instructions / hints ===
+
# Right-click on the GnuCash icon and select 'Run as Administrator'
−
This is for a system where all the GTK and GNOME libs are installed in <tt>c:\GTK-2-8-10\</tt>.
+
# GnuCash starts up as expected
 +
# Close GnuCash
  
−
====./configure====
+
After doing the above once, I can start GnuCash normally and it starts up properly.
−
In order to get ./configure to run successfully, the following one change was necessary compared to SVN configure.in. Apply that by hand, then run ./autogen.sh, then run ./configure as usual.
 
  
−
--- configure.in        (Revision 14371)
+
Hopefully this helps someone. --[[User:Sketch|Sketch]] 05:05, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
−
+++ configure.in        (Arbeitskopie)
 
−
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
 
−
  # order, doesn't it? Whatever.)
 
−
  AC_PROG_CC
 
−
  AC_GNU_SOURCE
 
−
-AC_PROG_INTLTOOL
 
−
+AC_PROG_INTLTOOL([],[no-xml])
 
−
  AM_GCONF_SOURCE_2
 
  
−
:You can skip this patch if you install [http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/ ActivePerl] and <tt>export INTLTOOL_PERL=${PathToPerlBin}</tt>. This package includes <tt>XML::Parser</tt>.
+
== Font problems ==
  
−
Then run ./configure. The ./configure line used was
+
After upgrading to 2.2.1, people have reported font-related issues:
−
./configure --disable-error-on-warning --with-zlib=/c/GTK2-8-10 \
 
−
  LDFLAGS="-no-undefined -mms-bitfields -L/lib -L/mingw/lib -L/C/WINNT/system32 -lwsock32 -lregex" \
 
−
  CFLAGS="-I/usr/include -I/usr/local/include -D_WIN32 -DLIBLTDL_DLL_IMPORT -mms-bitfields" \
 
−
  PKG_CONFIG=/c/GTK2-8-10/bin/pkg-config \
 
−
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/c/GTK2-8-10/lib PATH="/c/GTK2-8-10/bin:$PATH"
 
  
−
Now you need to do some changes in the file config.status. Change the line defining LN_S to read
+
* The tick/check mark in the Reconcile window may look like a "nondescript squiggle"
 +
* Register windows may open with all transactions scrolled out of sight (upwards)
 +
* Languages other than English show characters as a box of four zeros "0 0 0 0".
  
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s,@LN_S@,touch,;t t
+
The reason appears to be that GnuCash is now referring to Windows to determine what fonts to use,
 +
and in both these cases is using the one specified for "Message Box", which defaults to Tahoma 8.
  
−
and in the line defining G_WRAP_MODULE_DIR, replace all forward slashes by properly quoted backslashes, e. g.
+
Changing to Tahoma 10 fixed both of these for me.
  
−
s,@G_WRAP_MODULE_DIR@,c:\\\\GTK2-8-10\\\\share\\\\guile\\\\site,;t t
+
The procedure on WinXP is:
 +
# Start -> Control panel or My Computer -> Control panel
 +
# Appearance and Themes -> Display (or, if using the "Classic View", Display)
 +
# Appearance
 +
# Advanced
 +
# Select "Message Box" from the drop-down
 +
# Change as required (e.g. set to Tacoma 10 point)
 +
# OK
 +
# Apply
  
−
so that guile at runtime will use the windows-style backslash path to find the g-wrap module directory. Otherwise the commands for building the g-wrap wrapsets will fail with "no such module" errors.
+
[[User:Fred|Fred]] 10:30, 22 August 2007 (EDT)
 +
:Is this still necessary when using GnuCash 2.2.2? [[User:Andi5|andi5]]
  
−
(Note that the g-wrap wrapper generator didn't start up successfully when the current working directory was on the SMB share. The g-wrap wrapper generator only works when I'm on the local disc of the computer.)
+
I ([[User:piyo|piyo]]) confirmed that the above procedure is necessary for viewing Japanese on Windows XP with GnuCash 2.2.3 (2008-01-08):
 +
* Confirmed that working fonts are '''Arial UI Unicode''', '''FixSys''', '''System''', '''Tahoma''' (including 8!), '''Terminal'''. Also for Japanese, '''MS P Gothic''', '''MS P Mincho''', '''MS UI Gothic''', '''MS Gothic''', '''MS Mincho fonts''' are working.
 +
* Confirmed that non-working fonts are '''Lucida Sans Unicode''' and '''Microsoft Sans Serif'''.
 +
--[[User:Piyo|Piyo]] 23:23, 5 February 2008 (EST)
  
−
====Symlinks====
+
== Program hangs constantly ==
−
During the build, various header files are expected to be located in subdirectories, which is simulated during normal Unix building by setting symlinks to the current working directory. This doesn't work on windows due to the missing symlinks. If you encounter such errors (e.g. for goffice/goffice-config.h or various g-wrapped/gw-foo.scm files), you need to manually create these subdirectories and copy the respective files into that newly created subdirectory. (e. g. "rm -rf goffice; mkdir goffice; cp goffice-config.h goffice-features.h goffice")
 
  
−
====goffice====
+
(GnuCash 2.4)
−
The internal goffice subdirectory of gnucash doesn't immediately compile. A few changes are necessary:
 
−
* The headers <urlmon.h> and <htmlhelp.h> as well as the libraries urlmon and htmlhelp are unknown, at least on my windows system. Therefore the header goffice/utils/win32-stub.h needs to be edited to get rid of these headers, and goffice/utils/win32-stub.c as well. I simply removed the includes, and replaced the function calls in the c file by "return 0;".
 
−
* The HtmlHelp seems to be unavailable but is expected in goffice/gtk/goffice-gtk.c; I replaced in line 746 the "#elif defined(G_OS_WIN32)" by "#elif 0".
 
−
All changes are included in the diff available at https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-March/016883.html
 
  
−
=== Status ===
+
According to [{{BugURL}}/show_bug.cgi?id=677829 this bug report] GnuCash can become unstable with some themes. The original reporter didn't remember which themes caused issues, but had no problems when using the "Unity" theme.
  
−
The windows port successfully compiled all C files in the standard configuration, which were 586 C files in r13657. All gnucash modules can be linked successfully. All test executables can be compiled and linked as well. It is possible to run "make install" successfully until end.
+
--[[User:GJanssens|GJanssens]] 18 October 2013
  
−
The majority of checks can be run successfully as well (in src/engine, only 3 out of 22 fail). However there are problems with the installation of the gnucash scheme modules, which might probably need some tweaking with the guile path variables (backward vs. forward slashes and the like).
+
== Gnucash fails to start with Failed to contact configuration server ==
  
−
However, when starting gnucash-bin.exe nothing happens so far.
+
(GnuCash 2.4)
  
−
Note: Due to the file system wrapper layers in mingw32, compiling and especially linking is ''extremely'' slow. A full build of the gnucash tree might take well over 6 hours on a normal PC.
+
Copied from [{{BugURL}}/show_bug.cgi?id=708989 this bug report]:
  
−
=== Old notes ===
+
I installed GnuCash on Windows 7 and at one point I received the following error message  
−
* There was a weird linker problem in the early porting effort. The src/gnc-module/libgncmodule.la DLL doesn't export its symbols. This DLL simply won't have any exported symbols,  in stark contrast to e.g. src/core-utils/libcore-utils.la, which has all symbols exported just fine. My checking for exported symbols was <tt>nm .libs/libgncmodule.dll.a | grep ' T '</tt>. Turns out the libtool header <ltdl.h> ''must'' have the macros _WIN32 and in particular LIBLTDL_DLL_IMPORT defined or otherwise the linking will fail on windows. Once I do this, these variables marked with "C" disappear in the object file, and all expected symbols correctly appear. That's why these macros are included in the above configure command now. Of course this is nowhere documented, thank you libtool.
 
−
* In goffice, one include directory was missing and needs to be added to CFLAGS, either in config.status or manually in the Makefiles: -I/c/GTK2-8-10/include/freetype2 ; either this is fixed in gnucash, or you fix the pkgconfig file <tt>pangoft2.pc</tt> as described in the gnome section above.
 
−
* I got DLL problems when running tests and/or starting gnucash-bin.exe. The error message is something like "cannot find symbol freeaddrinfo in WS2_32.DLL". This was fixed by upgrading ORBit to 2.13.3.
 
−
* "make check" gave some errors related to the g-wrap installation: ERROR: file: "libgw-guile-standard", message: "can't open the module". To fix this, run "cp libgw-guile-standard-0.dll libgw-guile-standard.dll" in the bin directory of the g-wrap installation.
 
  
−
===TODO===
+
  Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need
−
We collect various TODO-items that need to be solved in order to compile gnucash on Windows.
+
  to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a
−
* <tt>ln -s</tt> - The windows file systems don't have symlinks. GnuCash uses symlinks extensively all over the build system. Replacing the literal <tt>ln -s</tt> by the macro <tt>LN_S</tt> seemed a good thing, but still won't work in many cases because gnucash relies upon content that is created later in the symlinked directory, i.e. simply making a copy is IIRC not sufficient. The only long-term solution would be to have gnucash create the content and copy it afterwards, not assuming a symlinked directory.
+
  system crash. See https://projects-old.gnome.org/gconf/ for information.
 +
  (Details -  1: IOR file
 +
  'C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\gconfd-Username/lock/ior' not opened
 +
  successfully, no gconfd located: No such file or directory 2: IOR file
 +
  'C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\gconfd-Username/lock/ior' not opened
 +
  successfully, no gconfd located: No such file or directory)
 +
 
 +
I do not know what caused this error message.
 +
 
 +
Uninstalling GnuCash, removing an empty gnucash folder in C:\Program Files
 +
(x86)\, and reinstalling Gnucash does not restore GnuCash. I.e., same error
 +
message was produced.
 +
 
 +
Cleaning up the windows registry did not help either.
 +
 
 +
What did work was to remove the folder
 +
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\gconfd-Username/   
 +
which did not contain the subdirectory + file lock/ior that is mentioned in the
 +
error message.
 +
 
 +
The folder AppData is hidden (for Windows 7) and needs to be explicitly typed
 +
in the folder browser.
 +
 
 +
And also note that 'Username' should be replaced with your real username in the path (it's in there two times).
 +
 
 +
--[[User:GJanssens|GJanssens]] 18 October 2013
 +
== Windows 11: GnuCash installer quits without doing anything ==
 +
When launching <code>gnucash-setup.exe</code> Windows 10 and Windows 11 usually complain that GnuCash is from an unknown developer and will put up a scary dialog but if you accept the risk it will run the installer after the usual User Authorization Escalation dialog. We've had a [https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=799299 report] that Windows 11 might silently fail to do anything. If that happens to you right-click on <code>gnucash-setup.exe</code> and select Properties from the context menu, then click Unblock and Save. You should be able to launch the installer normally.

Latest revision as of 21:51, 3 May 2024

GnuCash on Microsoft Windows

This page collects various notes about running GnuCash on Microsoft Windows.

Q: Which Windows versions are supported?

Answer
The download page shows, which Windows version is officially supported by which GnuCash version.
Note
Windows 3/95/98/Me and Windows NT3.5/4.0 have never been supported.

Q: Where is the binary installer?

A: The latest versions can be downloaded from the [{{{{URL:www}}}}/download.phtml download] page on the GnuCash website. Anyone who cares about their data should use the released version found there.

People looking to test new features - at the risk of running into extra bugs - could try a test version:
  • As it is not so easy to build GnuCash under Windows, a daily build of the stable branch is made available as well to test bugfixes.
  • To closely follow development on the future branch, which contains new features - and bugs - there are the nightly builds. Expect data loss if you try these though!

Q: Is it possible to compile GnuCash on Windows?

A: Yes. It's cumbersome, but possible. See the instructions in Building on Windows.

Q: Are there nightly builds?

A: We run nightly builds for the stable (former maint) and after implmenting its first feature the future (former master) branch, but it's configured so that it runs only if changes have been pushed since the last build and only if the build is successful; they do fail from time to time. You can find the last 6-12 month's worth of builds at 

https://code.gnucash.org/builds/win32/

or, more specifically, for stable, on demand for future, and logs for all builds.

The product of the nightly builds is a Windows installer that will replace your existing GnuCash installation. The future branch really is unstable: Be sure to have suitable backups and don't use it for your "production" books.

Q: Anything else?

To avoid making the installer file even bigger, some functionality is not available without further downloads and installations of software.

Preferences in GnuCash 2.6 and more recent

gconf has been replaced with another preferences system. On Windows you will find the preferences directly in the Windows Registry under the registry key 

 HKEY_CURRENT_USER/software/GSettings/org/gnucash/

Pdf name for invoices

This name is controlled by two hidden preferences:

  • pdf-export/filename-format
  • pdf-export/filename-date-format

Both of them will reside in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER/software/GSettings/org/gnucash/dialogs/general/report

These won't be there by default (only values that deviate from the default value will be effectively in the registry). To change it you will first have to create a sub key named 'pdf-export.

Under this key you can create two string type keys named filename-format and filename-date-format.

This is the definition of these two string keys:

filename-format
This setting chooses the file name for PDF export. This is a sprintf(3) string with three arguments: "%1$s" is the report name such as "Invoice". "%2$s" is the number of the report, which for an invoice report is the invoice number. "%3$s" is the date of the report, formatted according to the filename-date-format setting. (Note: Any characters that are not allowed in filenames, such as '/', will be replaced with underscores '_' in the resulting file name.)
The default value is %1$s-%2$s-%3$s
filename-date-format
This setting chooses the way dates are used in the filename of PDF export. Possible values for this setting are "locale" to use the system locale setting, "ce" for Continental Europe style dates, "iso" for ISO 8601 standard dates , "uk" for United Kingdom style dates, and "us" for United States style dates.

Finance::Quote

For the retrieval of Online Quotes, you will need to install Perl and Finance::Quote (F::Q). See Installing Perl on Windows.

Notes

Error messages, Trace file

In the GnuCash application, all error messages are redirected to a trace file. There will be one trace file for each time GnuCash is run. For a user named "myname" these files are located in the folder

  • c:\Documents and Settings\myname\Local Settings\Temp (Windows XP) or
  • C:\Users\myname\AppData\Local\Temp (Windows Vista/7).

They are named

  • gnucash.trace.ABCDEF (GnuCash 2.2.9 and older) or
  • gnucash.trace.ABCDEF.log (GnuCash 2.4.0 and newer)

where the ABCDEF part is changed randomly on each start of gnucash. See also Tracefile.

If you experience crashes or unexpected behavior, check the latest of these files (or the one created when the problem started) and add all interesting-looking lines of that file to your error reports, at least the lines with the keywords WARNing and CRITical warning.

See also Windows Debugging.

Determining the locale

When asked for the locale, take a look at the Regional Settings in your Control Panel and report the values found for "Standard and Formats", "Location" and "Language for non-Unicode programs".

Also, use this bug's attachment to determine the locale as used internally by gettext.

Problems, issues, comments

For any problem that occurs now, you should add a new section below.

Issues with older versions of GnuCash

In an effort to keep the information somewhat manageable this page will only gather issues with the current stable version of GnuCash. For historical reference, the older issues will be moved to a separate page.

If you experience issues with an older version of GnuCash, the first advice is normally to try again with the current stable version. There may however be situations where you need to revive an older version and in that case the information kept on the older issues page may be useful.

In addition, if you experience any of the older issues in the current stable release of GnuCash, please file a bug report or ask about it on the user mailing list.

Known issues

Here is a list of the most often mentioned Windows issues. If you experience this problem, please check the respective bugzilla reports for potential workarounds.

Windows 7 64-bit - GnuCash fails to run

This is with GnuCash 2.4.3:

Starting GnuCash shows the splash screen and the tip of the day for a brief instant and then it disappears. To fix the problem, I did:

  1. Right-click on the GnuCash icon and select 'Run as Administrator'
  2. GnuCash starts up as expected
  3. Close GnuCash

After doing the above once, I can start GnuCash normally and it starts up properly.

Hopefully this helps someone. --Sketch 05:05, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Font problems

After upgrading to 2.2.1, people have reported font-related issues:

  • The tick/check mark in the Reconcile window may look like a "nondescript squiggle"
  • Register windows may open with all transactions scrolled out of sight (upwards)
  • Languages other than English show characters as a box of four zeros "0 0 0 0".

The reason appears to be that GnuCash is now referring to Windows to determine what fonts to use, and in both these cases is using the one specified for "Message Box", which defaults to Tahoma 8.

Changing to Tahoma 10 fixed both of these for me.

The procedure on WinXP is:

  1. Start -> Control panel or My Computer -> Control panel
  2. Appearance and Themes -> Display (or, if using the "Classic View", Display)
  3. Appearance
  4. Advanced
  5. Select "Message Box" from the drop-down
  6. Change as required (e.g. set to Tacoma 10 point)
  7. OK
  8. Apply

Fred 10:30, 22 August 2007 (EDT)

Is this still necessary when using GnuCash 2.2.2? andi5

I (piyo) confirmed that the above procedure is necessary for viewing Japanese on Windows XP with GnuCash 2.2.3 (2008-01-08):

  • Confirmed that working fonts are Arial UI Unicode, FixSys, System, Tahoma (including 8!), Terminal. Also for Japanese, MS P Gothic, MS P Mincho, MS UI Gothic, MS Gothic, MS Mincho fonts are working.
  • Confirmed that non-working fonts are Lucida Sans Unicode and Microsoft Sans Serif.

--Piyo 23:23, 5 February 2008 (EST)

Program hangs constantly

(GnuCash 2.4)

According to this bug report GnuCash can become unstable with some themes. The original reporter didn't remember which themes caused issues, but had no problems when using the "Unity" theme.

--GJanssens 18 October 2013

Gnucash fails to start with Failed to contact configuration server

(GnuCash 2.4)

Copied from this bug report:

I installed GnuCash on Windows 7 and at one point I received the following error message 

 Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need
 to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a
 system crash. See https://projects-old.gnome.org/gconf/ for information.
 (Details -  1: IOR file
 'C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\gconfd-Username/lock/ior' not opened
 successfully, no gconfd located: No such file or directory 2: IOR file
 'C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\gconfd-Username/lock/ior' not opened
 successfully, no gconfd located: No such file or directory)

I do not know what caused this error message.

Uninstalling GnuCash, removing an empty gnucash folder in C:\Program Files (x86)\, and reinstalling Gnucash does not restore GnuCash. I.e., same error message was produced.

Cleaning up the windows registry did not help either.

What did work was to remove the folder C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\gconfd-Username/ which did not contain the subdirectory + file lock/ior that is mentioned in the error message.

The folder AppData is hidden (for Windows 7) and needs to be explicitly typed in the folder browser.

And also note that 'Username' should be replaced with your real username in the path (it's in there two times).

--GJanssens 18 October 2013

Windows 11: GnuCash installer quits without doing anything

When launching gnucash-setup.exe Windows 10 and Windows 11 usually complain that GnuCash is from an unknown developer and will put up a scary dialog but if you accept the risk it will run the installer after the usual User Authorization Escalation dialog. We've had a report that Windows 11 might silently fail to do anything. If that happens to you right-click on gnucash-setup.exe and select Properties from the context menu, then click Unblock and Save. You should be able to launch the installer normally.

Retrieved from "https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/index.php?title=Windows&oldid=22115"