Editing _vimrc in Windows

Question

I am having some trouble with VIM on windows, and I was wondering if anyone could be of assistance. As of right now, I am trying to make it so that when VIM starts, it changes it's working directory to one besides the default (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Vim 7.3). The way I am going about this is adding in cd $HOME\Desktop\VimFiles, where $HOME is C:\Users\Alphabet (Alphabet is the name of my account).

The issue I am running into right now is that after opening up _vimrc and adding in the line stated above, I cannot save the file, even when forcing it (with w!). I was wondering why this is and how I can go about fixing this. As an added note, I am running this in GVIM.

Note: I have attempted to do the same thing in VIM, and am able to edit the _vimrc file fine, but when I go to it's location and open it with GVIM or Notepad++, the "cd" line doesn't show up. Is there a reason for this?

Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

It looks like you are trying to write a file in a protected directory without the proper privileges.

In Vim, :echo $HOME tells you where you are supposed to put your _vimrc. In your case, your _vimrc should be C:\Users\Alphabet\_vimrc and you should put your plugins and whatnot in C:\Users\Alphabet\vimfile\.

Never touch system files!