Where do I save pathogen.vim so that the plugin installs

Question

I've just downloaded the file pathogen.vim from vim.org

Where do I save this file so that it becomes part of gVim? In one of the runtimepath locations?

Does this .vim need to go in either of these locations?:
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim73\
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Vim\vimfiles\

Answer 1

1. You don't need pathogen to install plugins.

2. For the nth time this week, put your plugins into the C:\Users\username\vimfiles directory and your settings into the C:\Users\username\_vimrc file. You must create those directories/files yourself.

3. What you should have:

   C:\Users\username\_vimrc
   C:\Users\username\vimfiles\
   C:\Users\username\vimfiles\autoload\
   C:\Users\username\vimfiles\autoload\pathogen.vim
   C:\Users\username\vimfiles\bundle\
   

4. Many Vim plugins have UNIX-oriented instructions and Vim itself is mostly UNIX-oriented so you'd better learn a thing or two about the UNIX command line.

Answer 2

If you are using windows, I recommend that you install your gVim into a custom directory instead of under Program Files or Program Files (x86) directories.

This makes things a lot easier going forward.

For instance, in a location like this:-

Install gvim in your user's home directory (e.g. C:\Users\whytheq\) (where whytheq is your user name) so it becomes C:\Users\whytheq\Vim73\.

Then, create a _vimrc file (with no file extension) there as well with the following contents:

set nocp
call pathogen#infect()
syntax on
filetype plugin indent on

Next, create a folder under C:\Users\whytheq\Vim73 called vimfiles with two subfolders beneath that, autoload and bundle.

Then, download the pathogen.vim file and moved it into the autoload folder.