How can I use Alt as meta key in Windows for Emacs 23, especially M-x?

Question

I tried to use Alt as meta key for the FSF Emacs 23 Windows version and for EmacsW32 but especially Mx (Alt-x) does not work.

Somehow I cannot use Alt as Meta key for Alt-x (Mx). I searched really hard and all I got is how to switch the meta key to Alt in w32-meta-style. Currently this variable has the value 'use Alt as Meta key'. I also tried all other values with no success. Furthermore I installed the unpatched version of emacs from http://ourcomments.org/Emacs/EmacsW32.html and the original binaries from gnu.org. All versions have the same problem.

Alt works as Meta, except for Alt-x (Meta-x).

My setup is as follows:

• Windows 7 x64 Professional
• German keyboard

This question is Windows specific as I have a working Ubuntu version of Emacs 23.

EDIT: It was Growl for Windows. It loads on start up and caputes all Alt-x inputs. So my solution was to just disable Growl as I do not need it anymore. Might be another App for you.

Answer 1

It should work out of the box. Does Alt+x work as Mx if you start Emacs with the -Q flag? That inhibits loading of your customizations, in case one of them is breaking Mx on Windows.

Also, Emacs only treats the left Alt key as Meta by default, the right Alt (AltGr), is used for entering special characters .

Answer 2

I don't know about w32-meta-style but did you set w32-alt-is-meta ? See http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual/emacs/Windows-Keyboard.html

Answer 3

The Growl hotkeys can be changed: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/growl-for-windows/luSpf9lQQRM

To disable the hotkeys, just remove the content of the 'value' tags.