This is my first post to the list. I'm a first time user and I'm very eager to give Context a try. However, so far I've been unable to get Context to work properly. Maybe someone can help. I'm using a standard Windows PC running XP SP2. I'm using the minimals version. There are no other Tex related packages on my system. Problem 1 (solved): Ruby error: no such file to load ubygems Solution: this error is caused by the environment variable RUBYOPT. When it is set, it is usually set to -rubygems. Unsetting this variable solves the problem. Suggestion: when running first-setup.bat this error is produced on the very first line. However, since there is a lot of text scrolling down the screen this error is easily overlooked. It may be a good idea to unset the RUBYOPT variable in this .bat file. It may also be a good idea to unset (and probably reset) this variable in the texexec.bat file before texlua is called. Problem 2 (not-solved) I'm getting the infamous error: I can't find the format file `cont-en.fmt'! I searched this list and tried texexec --make --all This doesn't solve the problem. The problem is located in this part of the output: TexExec | using tex engine pdftex TexExec | using tex format path ./pdftex TexExec | unable to make format due to lack of permissions TexExec | using mp engine mpost TexExec | using mps format path . TexExec | generating mps format metafun I then did some debugging on the tex.rb file and found the error is generated in the following piece of code starting at line 646: if texformats && texengine then report("using tex engine #{texengine}") texformatpath = if getvariable('local') then '.' else Kpse.formatpath(texengine,true) end # can be empty, to do report("using tex format path #{texformatpath}") Dir.chdir(texformatpath) rescue false if FileTest.writable?(texformatpath) then The last if fails and generates the error on line 679. I then checked for file permissions in the c:\context directory tree and found no problems there. My guess: the ./pdftex format path either doesn't exist or can't be found by tex.rb and this generates the error. The ruby scripts of Context are too large to do a full debug. I simply do not have the time for that. So, after several hours of hacking I hope someone can solve this problem, so I can finally give Context a try. Regards, Harrie Frericks The Netherlands