Re: Unsafe directory error at startup.

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Pingouin <gerald.jean@dgag.ca>
> Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2011 06:04:38 -0700 (PDT)
> 
> I just installed emacs-23.3.1 on a 64-bit Windows server where I have
> temporary admin rights.
> 
> I did copy my .emacs file from a 32-bit Windows workstation to the
> startup directory.
> 
> At startup I get the following error.
> 
> &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
> Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading `c:/Program
> Files/Emacs/.emacs':
> 
> error: The directory `~/.emacs.d/server' is unsafe
> &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

This means you are not the owner of that directory.

> this directory is created by Emacs itself, why is it "unsafe"?

Because it was created with someone else's credentials, which means
that someone has full access to your private stuff.

It depends how you ran Emacs the first time.  (What does it mean
"temporary admin rights"?)

First thing to try is delete the ~/.emacs.d directory (copy any
precious file there to some temporary place), then restart Emacs while
logged in under your "normal" username, not "temporary admin", and let
Emacs create that directory with your credentials.

To see who is that directory's owner, type inside Emacs

  M-: (file-attributes "~/.emacs.d/server" 'string) RET

and compare the owner with

  M-: (user-login-name) RET

If recreating the .emacs.d directory doesn't help, change its owner
via the "My Computer"s "Security" tab shown when you right-click on
.emacs.d in Windows Explorer.