gvim reads _vimrc, vim does not

Question

I'm running vim from an external hard drive, so _vimrc is not in %HOMEPATH% the way it normally is.

_vimrc is inside the vim folder, in addition to the vim73 and vimfiles folders.

_vimrc works when I run gvim, but not when I run vim.

Why?

Answer 1

If you are using MSYS or Cygwin, these programs will cause vim to look for your _vimrc in their own home directories, not the typical Windows home directory.

If this is the case, you can probably fix it by making a link to your _vimrc and placing it in their special home directory.

Answer 2

Seems you are using vim on Windows, if you are using vim binary release with GVIM, it should work without problem, just confirm it by checking your path command "path", and make sure you had installed vim with command line script, it's a option during installation.

If you are using MSYS or Cygwin, just type "type vim" to see which vim binary you are using, and check your home by 'cd ~', it should use the rc file under ~ unless you had some customization with previous binary/shell script.