= Trying out Recoll on Windows
Jean-Francois Dockes <jf at dockes.org>

image:recoll-windows10-thumb.png[link="recoll-windows10.png"]

The Windows port of Recoll has reached a point where it can be tested. At
least, it will not break your system, and it does not crash too often.

It was built on Windows 7, and tried on Windows 7 and 10.

I would be very eager to get some feedback from some actual Windows user
(I am only a visitor to Windows...). Is this useful at all ? What would 
make it more useful ? 

There is no installer for the moment, the program and its auxiliary files
are stored in a Zip file. This is quite big, because it contains a good
part of the Qt 5.5.0 dlls (I can't produce a static build because of WebKit).

The Zip creates a `recoll` directory. As far as I know, there is no
assumption where it should reside, I use `c:/recoll`, but anywhere
else should be ok.

You can get the Zip file either from the 
http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/windows/[download directory on
lesbonscomptes] or from 
https://bitbucket.org/medoc/recoll/downloads/[the one on bitbucket].

Besides extracting the Zip, you need to:

 - Download and install Python 2.7 from
   https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-2710/. Most Recoll data
   extraction filters have at least a Python part, so you will not be able
   to do much without this.
 - Download and install the 7-zip program from http://www.7-zip.org/. This
   is only useful if you need to index compressed files.

 - Update your PATH variable with the locations of the `python` and `7z`
   executables.

   * From Windows Explorer, click `Computer` in the left pane, then 
     `System Properties` from the top, then `Avanced System Settings` from
     the left pane, then `Environment Variables` at the bottom of the
     popup. 
   * Check that the locations for `python` (`C:\Python27`), and `7z`
     (`C:\Program Files\7-Zip`) are either in the User or System PATH
     variable. If they are not in there already , update or create the user
     PATH and add them as: `C:\Python27;C:\Program Files\7-Zip` (use a
     semi-colon as separator).

Windows tricks:

 - When filtering the search with a `dir:` clause, an absolute path
   should be specified as `/c/mydir` instead of `c:/mydir`

Known problems:

 - The default result list font is particularly ugly. Change it from 
   `Preferences->GUI Configuration->Result List->Result List Font`

 - The GUI sometimes crashes when you click `Preview` or `Open`. This does
   not occur often, and usually for one of the first tries after starting
   the program. Don't despair.

 - There is no real-time or scheduled indexing as on Linux. For now, you
   create and update the index by using the `File` menu (or executing
   `recollindex.exe` from a command window).

 - I'm quite convinced that there are still problems with file path case
   insensitivity. The best approach when setting up the config is
   to use the exact case for now.

 - I'll add the others here as they are found ...