I have the same observation. The TeXLive 2005 definition is
TEXFORMATS = .;$TEXMF/web2c/{$engine,}
but it seems to me tex binaries do not set $engine variable. If so, it can be locally solved (without changing binaries and supposing not using xetex or another engine) by
TEXFORMATS = .;$TEXMF/web2c//
Vit
I'm sorry it doesn't work for me either. (have TL2005 on WinXP) I still get the message "I can't find the TeX format 'cont-en'" unless I copy it into the 'web2c' directory. I've noticed this in context.cnf: TEXMFMAIN = $SELFAUTOPARENT/texmf TEXMFLOCAL = $SELFAUTOPARENT/texmf-local TEXMFFONTS = $SELFAUTOPARENT/texmf-fonts TEXMFEXTRA = $SELFAUTOPARENT/texmf-extra TEXMFPROJECT = $SELFAUTOPARENT/texmf-project VARTEXMF = $SELFAUTOPARENT/texmf-var TEXMF = {!!$TEXMFPROJECT,!!$TEXMFFONTS,!!$TEXMFLOCAL,!!$TEXMFEXTRA,!!$TEXMFMAIN} % --- cut --- TEXFORMATS = .;$TEXMF/web2c/{$engine,} It's strange that there isn't $VARTEXMF included in the TEXMF path. I've tried to add it: TEXMF = {!!$TEXMFPROJECT,!!$TEXMFFONTS,!!$TEXMFLOCAL,!!$TEXMFEXTRA,!!$TEXMFMAIN,!!$VARTEXMF} but with no result... :-( I'm attaching the complete context.cnf file for reference. -Richard