I must be making this way too complicated, anyway... I placed C:\ConTeXt\texmf-mswin\bin ahead of TeXLive in my NT PATH (Windows 2000) so those binaries get called first. I tried to make the aleph format: ======================================================= C:\ConTeXt\texmf-mswin\web2c>aleph --ini *plain \dump This is Alephk, Version 3.141592-1.15-2.1-0.0-rc4 (Web2c 7.5.3) (INIALEPH) %&-line parsing enabled. Copyright (c) 2002--2004 the Aleph task force entering extended mode (c:/ConTeXt/texmf/tex/plain/base/plain.tex Preloading the plain format: codes, registers, parameters, fonts, more fonts, ! Font \preloaded=manfnt not loadable: Metric (TFM/OFM) file not found. <to be read again> \par l.468 ? ======================================================= It works fine in TeXLive. Another problem: how can I have both the aleph and the pdfetex formats? texexec --make en -tex=aleph overides the default cont-en.fmt made by texexec --make Question: how can I configure mktexlsr so that it updates both C:\ConTeXt as well as C:\TeXLive? best Idris Professor Idris Samawi Hamid Department of Philosophy Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523