Vim in command prompt on Windows 10

Question

I wanted to use Vim on the command prompt, but it gave

vim is not recognized as an internal or external command

I tried searching for a solution and found that I should edit the user specific environment variable 'path', but it still gives the same error. What can be the solution?

Actually i selected 'browse directory' and selected the location of vim i.e C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim — SQR, Mar 29 '17 at 13:06
Does this answer your question? [Error "'git' is not recognized as an internal or external command"](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4492979/error-git-is-not-recognized-as-an-internal-or-external-command) — tripleee, Dec 22 '22 at 07:25

score 28 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 08 '20 at 18:08

28

Go to the file location, and double click install.exe. That will open cmd.

If it asks you "Do you want to uninstall", type N and then type D.

edited Oct 08 '20 at 18:08

Peter Mortensen

30,738
21
105
131

answered Sep 20 '18 at 15:00

m0haMed

420
5
7

1

How does this magically work ? Yet D is not among the options . – Barungi Stephen May 15 '21 at 10:08
1

The underlying issue wound up being Run As Administrator for me but this helped me to expose it – cBlaine Dec 22 '21 at 18:21

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 27 '21 at 08:32

11

Install vim again and make sure to check the box of "create .bat files" option when installing

answered Sep 27 '21 at 08:32

Kiwi

111
1
2

score 6 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 08 '20 at 18:06

6

Actually I selected 'browse directory' and selected the location of Vim i.e., C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim

You need to locate the directory that contains vim.exe. If you use the default installation options (and latest available version), that would be C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim\vim80.

Note that there's also a 64-bit version of Vim for Windows.

edited Oct 08 '20 at 18:06

Peter Mortensen

30,738
21
105
131

answered Aug 01 '17 at 14:22

Ingo Karkat

167,457
16
250
324

score 3 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 08 '20 at 18:07

3

It's a problem of the installer on Windows 10!

The installer tries to write some files into C:\WINDOWS, but if you install without administrator privileges, those files cannot be written. However, the rest of the install works and so you think everything is fine.

Try to restart install.exe as an administrator!

edited Oct 08 '20 at 18:07

Peter Mortensen

30,738
21
105
131

answered Feb 24 '18 at 16:19

D. Lohrsträter

306
3
9

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 12 '22 at 12:41

2

First, open Power shell and set alias for canonized commands (Windows 7 and above):

$ Set-alias vi "\path\to\gvim.exe"

$ Set-alias vim "\path\to\gvim.exe"

answered Apr 12 '22 at 12:41

Scorpion_Veer

49
1
2
6

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 18 '21 at 08:32

1

unistall everythingn then follow the guide on: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/install-vim-text-editor-on-windows and make sure to get the full installation it will work in the CMD after that make sure to run it as admin i had the same issue

answered Jan 18 '21 at 08:32

Kylie Staraway

21
2

Although this isn't a "proper" answer, this did work for me. Thanks. – Stef Jun 24 '21 at 15:48

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 06 '22 at 12:20

1

When installing, put it to vim itself to create the bat path file on windows. This was my solution to this problem

answered Apr 06 '22 at 12:20

jonatasvnascimento

11
1

Vim in command prompt on Windows 10

7 Answers7