RE: lilypond

[Bertalan Fodor]

Welcome,

See http://lilypond.org/web/download/windows.html
2. Testing
. Shift-click here to download a test. 
. Save it on your desktop as test.ly (make sure it is not called
test.ly.TXT). 
. Double-click the file. 
This will process the file, and show the result in a PDF viewer.

If this works, you have installed lilypond correctly. If it does not,
please attach the generated log file.

> lilypond test 
> again as instructed.
> It fails.
> Why? What have I done wrong?
 
I think you are not in the correct folder.
When you start cygwin you get into "c:\Documents and
Settings\YOUR_NAME". You can see the current folder if you type "echo
$PWD" in the Cygwin shell - c: will be substituted by /cygdrive/c in
Cygwin (and so on for the other drives).
You can change the folder in cygwin by typing for example cd
"/cygdrive/d/My Documents"

Feel free to ask if you have problems/questions.

Greetings, 

Bert