Paul, Your solution essentially pointed me in the right direction: it was a pathing issue that was causing the problem. I, too had installed CYGWIN LyX ( which was working ) and that had caused a confusion when I installed Win32 LyX.
Order of operations: I re-installed MikTex Changed path to only have the miktext/bin directory in it launched the LyX installer from the command line ...installed.... ...ran the excellent bit of python magic you listed below, was able to see things working ...ran texhash manually...saw that things were looking good ...ran LyX I'm in business! I also used this same technique to debug my Mac install. I had tetex-mf blocking my i-installed /usr/texbin directory. Once I removed the borked tetex install and changed my path to use Weierdma's install path my LyX install went through great. So, to anyone having troubles: get a minimial path as possible and try to launch things from that minimal path command line environment. stevn -----Original Message----- From: news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul A. Rubin Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 11:37 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Error on startup Steven Harms (stharms) wrote: > My instance of this issue is on XP. The following are listed in no particular order: 1. When the LyX configuration script runs, it tests for the presence of some common LaTeX classes by attempting to compile a test document using each class. If you are using MikTeX (as I suspect), and some of the classes are not yet installed, MikTeX will either (a) fail to compile the test documents, (b) attempt to download and install the missing classes, or (c) prompt you for permission to install them, depending on how it is set up. Case (a) should result in the configuration script correctly recognizing that the classes are missing (letting it move on to other things). Case (b), or case (c) if you answer 'yes', can run into problems if either you do not have an active Internet connection or the server from which MikTeX tries to download the packages becomes unresponsive. The workaround for this is either to set MikTeX not to download missing packages (through MikTeX's Options program) or to answer 'no' if it prompts you. Packages can always be downloaded and installed later (after which LyX should be reconfigured). 2. If your XP account is set up to use a remote server (particularly if accessed by a UNC) as your home, misadventures will occur during configuration. I think LyX should pop up a message specific to this, but I won't swear to it. If you're not sure where your home is, open a DOS prompt and run 'set h'. Look for HOMEDRIVE (hopefully C:, hopefully not \\someserver) and HOMEPATH. 3. If you have both MikTeX and some other LaTeX program installed, with the other one first in the system command path, strange things can happen. I used to have Cygwin installed, with Cygwin's bin directory (containing a version of latex.exe) ahead of MikTeX's bin directory on my path. Cygwin's latex.exe didn't work with LyX, and since it was the one LyX found, configuration failed. If none of this provides an answer, try the following. Using Win Explorer to delete C:\Documents and Settings\<your id>\Application Data\LyX1.4.x (if it exists) and anything in it. Open a DOS prompt in C:\Documents and Settings\<your id>\Application Data. Run '<path to LyX>\python\python.exe <path to LyX>\Resources\configure.py'. If it produces (in .\LyX1.4.x) a textclass.lst file with length > 0, you should be able to run LyX. If not, post the output and maybe someone can spot a clue. HTH, /Paul
