[texhax] Replacing MiKTeX with TeX Live 2011

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2011-08-10 at 13:33:46 -0400, Peter Davis wrote:

 > On my Windows 7 Pro machine, I just un-installed MiKTeX 2.9, and
 > installed TeX Live.  However, the installation left me this
 > message:
 >    TLDownload::get_file: response error:
 >      400 FTP return code 000
 >    permanent server connection set up, but downloading did not succeed!
 > Retrying with wget.
 >    Warning: conflicting [pdf]tex program found on the system path in
 > C:\context\tex\texmf-mswin\bin; not fixable in user mode.
 > 
 > Worse, when I try to compile a known working .tex file with
 > XeLaTeX, I get this:

 > This is XeTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.2-0.9997.4 (Web2C 2010)
 > 
 >  restricted \write18 enabled.
 > 
 > ---! c:/texlive/2011/texmf-var/web2c/xetex/xelatex.fmt doesn't match
 > xetex.pool
 > 
 > (Fatal format file error; I'm stymied)
 > 
 > 
 > I'm stymied too.  Any clues?

Check your PATH.

 >    Warning: conflicting [pdf]tex program found on the system path in
 > C:\context\tex\texmf-mswin\bin; not fixable in user mode.

I suppose that you installed ConTeXt with admin privileges.   You have
to prepend the path to TL-2011 manually to the *system* PATH, as
administrator, of course.

Given that you get the XeTeX binary from your ConTeXt distribution,
what I don't understand is why it looks for a pool file in the TL
tree.  However, I think the first step to track it down is

  echo %PATH%

Also check your environment.  There shouldn't be any TeX-related
environment variables.

A nasty bug in Windows is that the system path is always prepended to
the user path.  The TeX Live installer can't do anything about it
other than providing the warning message above.

BTW, here is an excerpt from the file xetex.pool, which isn't found on
your system:

   54Pretend that you're Hercule Poirot: Examine all clues,
   41and deduce the truth by order and method.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
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