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== [[GnuCash]] on Microsoft Windows ==
+
= [[GnuCash]] on Microsoft Windows =
  
−
This page collects various notes about compiling [[GnuCash]] on Microsoft Windows. See [[Windows/Old_Notes]] for old, solved issues.
+
This page collects various notes about running [[GnuCash]] on Microsoft Windows.
 +
 
 +
=== 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.
 +
 
 +
=== 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 [{{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!
  
 
=== Q: Is it possible to compile GnuCash on Windows? ===
 
=== Q: Is it possible to compile GnuCash on Windows? ===
−
:'''A:''' Well, compiling is possible, and running as well, but so far not everything runs.
+
'''A:''' Yes. It's cumbersome, but possible. See the instructions in [[Building_on_Windows| Building on Windows]].
 +
 
 +
=== 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].
 +
 
 +
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''.
  
−
=== Q: So, where is the binary? ===
+
Under this key you can create two string type keys named '''filename-format'''
−
We do not (yet) provide a binary for Windows. The simple reason is already stated above: We know compiling is possible, but the runtime testing has just started, and we expect a lot of issues still need to be resolved. This means the source code will change quite quickly and those early testers are expected to follow those source code changes by getting the code from [[SVN]].  On the other hand, providing a binary would mean people wouldn't follow the source code changes quickly enough, making the testing almost useless. (That would change if someone volunteers to provide e.g. a nightly binary build. Volunteers, anyone?) That's why we still do not provide a binary, until we've received enough positive feedback to know the program can actually be distributed.
+
and '''filename-date-format'''.
  
−
=== Instructions for an (almost) automated build ===
+
This is the definition of these two string keys:
−
Copied from http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-September/018588.html
+
;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
  
−
Several people have now compiled and run GnuCash on MS Windows by the
+
;filename-date-format
−
mingw32/gcc compiler environment. These instructions explain how everyone else can give it
+
: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.
−
a try as well. We would be happy to hear any further feedback about
 
−
problems or (hopefully) success in this matter.
 
  
−
We've created a shell script that will download, compile, and install
+
==== Finance::Quote ====
−
all requirements of GnuCash on Windows and eventually GnuCash itself. It
+
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]].
−
will even make sure to retrieve the most up-to-date gnucash source code
 
−
directly from SVN. Running this script will probably download ~200MB of
 
−
data (but all downloaded data will be cached) and will take anything
 
−
between 0.5 through 5 hours of time. That shell script is located in
 
−
packaging/win32/install.sh of the gnucash [[SVN]] sources.  
 
  
−
Before you can execute this shell script (which will do everything else
+
= Notes =
−
automatically), you have to complete these steps manually:
+
== 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
 +
* <tt>c:\Documents and Settings\myname\Local Settings\Temp</tt> (Windows XP) or
 +
* <tt>C:\Users\myname\AppData\Local\Temp</tt> (Windows Vista/7).
 +
They are named
 +
* <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]].
  
−
* Get the content of the packaging/win32/ directory of gnucash [[SVN]], most up-to-date [http://svn.gnucash.org/repo/gnucash/trunk/packaging/win32/ from SVN], and copy it to some directory on your Windows machine. Do not use a directory that is one of the parent directories of the path you intend to use for the repository in the next step (c:\soft\repos by default).
+
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.
  
−
* Adapt the directory name variables in the custom.sh file according to your preferences; the defaults would install everything in subdirectories below c:\soft. (Note that due to shell syntax, every windows-style backslash has to be specified as two backslashes.)
+
See also [[Windows Debugging]].
  
−
* Download the "MSYS" package from http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml -> Section "Current" -> Subsection "MSYS" -> MSYS-1.0.10.exe [http://prdownloads.sf.net/mingw/MSYS-1.0.10.exe?download Download link]
+
== 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".
  
−
* Execute this downloaded package to install it into the chosen directory, say, C:\soft\msys (which is the $MSYS_DIR variable in custom.sh)
+
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.
  
−
* Download the "wget" package from http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml -> Current -> mingwPORT -> wget-1.9.1-mingwPORT.tar.bz2 [http://prdownloads.sf.net/mingw/wget-1.9.1-mingwPORT.tar.bz2?download Download link] and place the downloaded file in the $DOWNLOAD_DIR you have set in custom.sh
+
= Problems, issues, comments =
 +
For any problem that occurs now, you should add a new section below.
  
−
* Start the MSYS commandline shell by double-clicking the "MSYS" icon on the desktop which should have been created when you installed the MSYS package.
+
== Issues with older versions of GnuCash ==
  
−
* Let the automated build begin by typing:
+
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]].
  
−
  $INSTALLER_DIR/install.sh  (the complete path to the install.sh)
+
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.
  
−
* Some of the downloaded packages are installed through graphical installer dialogs where you can choose an installation directory. In those cases, the install.sh script will tell you in the MSYS window the installation directory that you should choose, according to your settings in custom.sh. Please enter only those installation directory in the installer dialog because otherwise the install.sh script cannot find the newly installed software.
+
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]].
  
−
* If there haven't been any errors, you should be able (after several hours of compiling and installing) to start gnucash from the MSYS command line by typing
+
== 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.
 +
* {{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
  
−
  c:/soft/gnucash/bin/gnucash
+
== Windows 7 64-bit - GnuCash fails to run ==
  
−
or even without MSYS directly by "Start"-> "Run"-> "c:\soft\gnucash\bin\gnucash.bat"
+
This is with GnuCash 2.4.3:
  
−
Please spread the word and report back any problems you encounter. It is
+
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:
−
probably not too difficult anymore to create a full self-contained
 
−
package of GnuCash on Windows as well! Some more information is also
 
−
collected here on this wiki page.
 
  
 +
# Right-click on the GnuCash icon and select 'Run as Administrator'
 +
# GnuCash starts up as expected
 +
# Close GnuCash
  
−
=== A bit of history ===
+
After doing the above once, I can start GnuCash normally and it starts up properly.
−
This page used to collect random notes from the time when we manually tried to install each and every part of the requirements. They have been moved to [[Windows/Old Notes]].
 
  
−
== Notes ==
+
Hopefully this helps someone. --[[User:Sketch|Sketch]] 05:05, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
  
−
=== gdb ===
+
== Font problems ==
−
In addition to [[Stack Trace]], here are a few instructions on how to run gnucash under gdb on Windows:
 
−
* Install "gdb" from mingw.org
 
−
* Modify the installed "gnucash" script to call "exec gdb gnucash-bin.exe" instead of "exec gnucash-bin.exe" at the end
 
−
* Then start gnucash, which will give you the gdb prompt
 
−
* Type "run" at the gdb prompt.
 
−
* Then provoke the crash and type "backtrace" or shorthand "bt" at the gdb prompt to obtain the backtrace, as explained on [[Stack Trace]] as well.
 
  
−
You can provide even better stack traces if you tell gdb where in memory dynamically loaded modules got mapped to, because otherwise function calls into those are only written as '??'. See [http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-November/019042.html here] and [http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-November/019048.html here] for a way to do this.
+
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".
  
−
== Problems, issues, comments ==
+
The reason appears to be that GnuCash is now referring to Windows to determine what fonts to use,
−
For any problem that occurs now, you should add a new section below.
+
and in both these cases is using the one specified for "Message Box", which defaults to Tahoma 8.
  
−
===What is needed for providing a binary...===
+
Changing to Tahoma 10 fixed both of these for me.
−
Hi all,
 
  
−
Since that gnucash works more or less nicely on windows, assuming that it might come even better in the future (big thanks to all developers and 'voluntaires') I said to my MS-friend he shall use gnucash. (sql-ledger would have been the other possibility).
+
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
  
−
Now I have the problem, what do I need to copy onto his machine now? The whole soft folder is 909M. It would be nice when it's possible to delete all not needed (just needs to run on his machine) stuff. I guess that will be about 85% maybe even?
+
[[User:Fred|Fred]] 10:30, 22 August 2007 (EDT)
 +
:Is this still necessary when using GnuCash 2.2.2? [[User:Andi5|andi5]]
  
−
Anyway, before doing quite some 'try and error' work to reduce that, I thought I would ask people (you :) with inside knowledge, maybe providing some hints to me.
+
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)
  
−
Thanks a lot!
+
== Program hangs constantly ==
−
[[User:Calmar|Calmar]]
 
  
−
:Assuming that you installed to different prefixes within soft, I will name a few directories that contain only build dependencies: active-perl (as long as finance::quote in non-functional), autotools, downloads, (expat?), indent, mingw, msys, pexports, repos, svn, swig, tmp, unzip and wget. There may be more we do not need to run GnuCash, but I think we do not have a better list right now. Maybe we should indeed start discussion some day :) -- [[User:Andi5|andi5]]
+
(GnuCash 2.4)
−
:Some stats of mine: c:\soft -> 4.15 GB, dirs above sum up to 2.64 GB. Did not expect that a high percentage, because I have a lot of stuff lying around :) Your mileage will vary.
 
  
−
::Hi Andi. I had to include the autotools folder.I have now: gnome, gnucash, goffice, guile, readline, autotools, libgsf and regex. 193MB. Only 50MB zipped (just in case it's here: http://www.calmar.ws/toni.zip ). Can send to the friend now. thanks again! [[User:Calmar|Calmar]] 16:04, 8 December 2006 (EST)
+
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.
−
:::Yes, I guess you need libltdl-3.dll only. In case you can wait a few days, I will try to make a script that extracts the necessary files. That may at least be an intermediate solution. -- [[User:Andi5|andi5]]
 
−
::::Hi Andi, it seems there is also the need for libssl32.dll libeay32.dll or so. Probably from the openssl package. Maybe the need to install the openssl package additionally , or maybe just the dll's in such a 'binary package'. I will check out somebit. Cheers [[User:Calmar|Calmar]]
 
  
−
===DLL install error===
+
--[[User:GJanssens|GJanssens]] 18 October 2013
−
I get an error like that:
 
  
−
'libgncmodule.la' 'c:/soft/gnucash/lib/libgncmodule.la'
+
== Gnucash fails to start with Failed to contact configuration server ==
−
/bin/install -c .libs/libgncmodule.dll.a
 
−
c:/soft/gnucash/lib/libgncmodule.dll.a
 
−
base_file=`basename ${file}`
 
−
  dlpath=`/bin/sh 2>&1 -c '. .libs/'${base_file}'i;echo $dlname'`
 
−
make[5]: *** [install-libLTLIBRARIES] Error 1
 
−
make[5]: Leaving directory `/c/soft/repos/src/gnc-module'
 
−
make[4]: *** [install-am] Error 2
 
  
−
This seems to be only an installation problem. Fine compiling it seems.
+
(GnuCash 2.4)
−
:I saw this at "make install" when I stopped and restarted the preceding compiling several times. So to me this looks like an artifact of DLLs that somehow "don't fit" to each other. The solution was always to run "make clean" in the source directory so that all DLLs are being deleted, and then starting the compiling again. --[[User:Cstim|Cstim]] 05:55, 4 December 2006 (EST)
 
  
−
::'make clean' in the repos/ and afterwards a rerun of install.sh really worked! thanks a lot [[User:Calmar|Calmar]] 08:47, 4 December 2006 (EST)
+
Copied from [{{BugURL}}/show_bug.cgi?id=708989 this bug report]:
−
:::actually it seems to be necessary here: to make 'make clean' in the repos/src/ dir *and* afterwards 'make clean' in the repos/ directory. Cheer [[User:Calmar|Calmar]] 08:14, 12 December 2006 (EST)
 
  
−
=== cannot move on swigwin ===
+
I installed GnuCash on Windows 7 and at one point I received the following error message
−
Extracting swigwin-1.3.29.zip ... done
 
−
mv: cannot move `mydir/Examples' to `./Examples'. I copied them manually then [[User:Calmar|Calmar]] 08:48, 4 December 2006 (EST)
 
−
:I guess the swig installation is not perfect with regard to updates. I will try to improve that. Meanwhile, removing the c:\soft\swig directory completely should solve the issue. -- [[User:Andi5|andi5]]
 
  
−
=== Text reports crash ===
+
  Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need
−
Some text report crashed instantly, but on some other machines they worked fine. Same for graphical reports. Debugging is ongoing. When you run gnucash in gdb, the crash does reliably ''not'' occur the text reports.
+
  to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a
−
:What we currently know: GnuCash spits a warning ([http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=378158]), but does not crash because of it. It crashes because of something different (in WinAPI?) we cannot detect in gdb. isDebuggerPresent() might be true, but a breakpoint will only be set for fatal errors, so we cannot set a breakpoint. We also cannot start gnucash with --g-fatal-warnings though, as a standard win32 glib build aborts the application after a critical error [http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=376645].
+
  system crash. See https://projects-old.gnome.org/gconf/ for information.
−
::I have filed a [http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=382852 bug]. May somebody try to compile my demo against the packages from ftp.gnome.org and a self-compiled gtkhtml? Do the crashes disappear for you too? -- [[User:Andi5|andi5]]
+
  (Details -  1: IOR file
−
:::Hi Andi, I would do it (even so i'm linux user) but I guess you would need to be more specific. I wouldn't really understand actually what to do really. Have no insights really, unless ./install.sh :) [[User:Calmar|Calmar]] 06:41, 11 December 2006 (EST)
+
  'C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\gconfd-Username/lock/ior' not opened
−
::::No need to anymore, a fix is underway (conceptually it is there, but well, nobody has implemented it yet ;-)) See the bug for more information. -- [[User:Andi5|andi5]]
+
  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)
  
−
=== GConf/ORBit COMM_FAILURE ===
+
I do not know what caused this error message.
−
On some computers (Windows 2000/SP4), the following error has been observed, but on other computers GConf runs fine. GConf shows plenty of error messages like these: "Failed to save key /apps/gnucash/window/pages/account_tree/name_visible: Adding client to server's list failed, CORBA error: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0" and also the "Cannot find default values" dialog is shown on each startup, regardless whether the "setup" is done or not. Also, the startup of GnuCash might open dozens of shell windows one after the other, and the startup of GnuCash is incredibly slow.
 
  
−
This is being reported to the ORBit crew as [http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=363648 bug#363648]. As a quick workaround, you have to install ORBit2-2.13.3 from [ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/ORBit2/2.13/ here] instead of 2.14.2, as this seems to fix that problem.
+
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.  
  
−
=== Failed to fork ===
+
Cleaning up the windows registry did not help either.
−
When starting GNUCash I receive the following message:
 
−
gnucash: [E] "Failed to fork child process."
 
−
It is not a fatal error (program continues to load).  Is this something I can safely ignore?  --[[User:Scbash|Scbash]] 17:10, 3 December 2006 (EST)
 
−
:This is from the file process.scm and it concerned with the Finance::Quote script for stock price retrieval. Chris wrote: "That's process.scm which is run during price-quote retrieval.  Perhaps guile's (primitive-fork) doesn't work on win32." You can ignore this for now. On the other hand, this means Finance::Quote and price retrieval currently doesn't work yet. --[[User:Cstim|Cstim]] 16:07, 4 December 2006 (EST)
 
  
−
=== Reading/writing compressed files===
+
What did work was to remove the folder
−
The current win32 SVN code doesn't read or write compressed (gzip'd) files. On Linux, gnucash forks gzip as a child process and pipes the file through it. On windows, there isn't an easy replacement for fork() and pipe(). See src/backend/file/io-gncxml-v2.c:1246 ff.
+
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).
  
−
== Todo ==
+
--[[User:GJanssens|GJanssens]] 18 October 2013
−
This section is intended mainly for developers to concisely specfiy what issues are open, assigned or closed (and can be removed then).
+
== Windows 11: GnuCash installer quits without doing anything ==
−
[ ] [[Windows#Text reports crash|R]] Text report crashers ([http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=382852 Bug], [http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=378158 Bug])
+
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.
−
[ ] [[Windows#GConf/ORBit COMM_FAILURE|R]]  GConf/ORBit2
 
−
[ ] [[Windows#cannot move on swigwin|R]]  SWIG installation (minor)
 
−
[ ]    Finance::Quote
 
−
[ ]    AqBanking
 
−
[ ]    Packaging
 
−
[ ]    Randomness ([http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2006-December/019289.html Mail])
 
−
[ ]    Terminal encoding != Locale encoding
 
−
[ ] [[Windows#Reading/writing compressed files|R]]  Compressed files
 
−
A lot more, fill me
 

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"