Two vimfiles directories. Where do I install my plugins?

Question

I'm using Windows 10.

I want to give Vim another shot after having some troubles with it in the past. I'm eager to learn it, but I'm confused. I gave a pretty thorough search to find my answer before I resorted to posting this here, but what is the proper way to install my vim plugins. I see two vimfiles folders in two different directories.

One in the $HOME directory.

C:\\User\\[USERNAME]\\vimfiles

And one in the installation directory.

C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Vim\\vimfiles

Is there a reason for there being two of these ? What's the best directory to install my plugins ?

Answer 1

It is related to 'runtimepath' param. Read :help 'runtimepath' for more info . C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Vim\\vimfiles is system folder with default plugins which are shipped with vim itself. C:\\User\\[USERNAME]\\vimfiles is your local runtimepath. And there you should put your plugins. This way if you have multiple users they all will have own vim environment to work in. If you want you can even set different runtimepath but this is whole another question))

Answer 2

C:\\User\\[USERNAME]\\vimfiles is your vim runtime files and C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Vim\\vimfiles is Vim 's runtime files. As long as a feature is present in your vim runtime files and vim request it, it will load them and if its not present there, then it will fallback to his runtime path to find it (ie C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Vim\\vimfiles ). So you should always install your plugins, colorschemes, syntaxes, ... in your vim runtime files and also back it up in a safe place and never touch vim's runtime files.