Vim: Change start up directory?

Question

When I start GVim and start writing my little program I'd like to save the file to the Desktop but it seems that Vim is starting the command line in:

C:\Windows\System32

How would I go about changing that to:

C:\Users\Casey

so then I could just:

:w Desktop\my_program.py

Thank you

Solution 1

Assuming you're starting gvim from an icon/shortcut in Windows (from the kind of paths you supply), you can change the starting directory (completely independent from the fact that it IS gvim: it would be the same from any other app!) by editing the "starting directory" property of that Windows icon/shortcut.

Solution 2

Within vim, you can change the current directory with the :cd command:

:cd c:\users\casey

Solution 3

I found this way to be better:

1. Open gVim
2. :cd $vim
3. :e _gvimrc

4. Add the following line:

   :cd c:\users\user\desktop\
   

I found that :Ex is slow on large directories like c:\windows\system32\ (where gVim usually starts).

---

Also, here is my full _gvimrc in case anyone is interested. I prefer Consolas for coding. The tabstop setting helps when coding especially in Python, and Ctrl+Tab/Ctrl+Shift+Tab is great for switching between buffers:

set guifont=Consolas:h12:cANSI
set tabstop=4 softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab
map <C-Tab> :bnext<cr>
map <C-S-Tab> :bprevious<cr>
:cd c:\users\user\desktop\

Solution 4

How about changing your starting position?

vim icon -> right click -> property -> shortcut -> Start in -> your path you want to change.

but it works perfectly.

I think :cd yourpath also works. but it will change when you don't want to change.

Solution 5

I found the following to be very useful. I am on Windows 7 and vim 7.3.46, and am using gVim.

I edited startup settings, which wound up altering the _vimrc in c:\Users\me\.

I also tried using :version and editing the _vimrc files I found at $VIM, as well as the _vimrc I found at c:\windows\system32.

Editing those files to include :cd c:\Users\me did not result in my default startup directory changing after starting vim. I wanted my default directory to be c:\Users\me\, and editing c:\Users\me\_vimrc achieved that. That is I entered

:e $MYVIMRC

and added

cd c:\Users\cnorton.Arlington1\

to that file.

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