Using NEURON under MSWindows

I installed NEURON but chose a different directory from the default (c:\nrn). The installer ran smoothly and reported no errors, but NEURON doesn't seem to work.

NEURON won't run if the path to it includes a blank space. If this is what happened, you should uninstall and reinstall NEURON into a different location. If this isn't the problem, please contact us for additional help.

The GUI tools are too big for the small (800x600) display on my laptop computer--the CellBuilder won't even fit on the screen!

In the file c:\nrn\lib\nrn.def change 
   *mswin_scale: 1.2
to 
   *mswin_scale: 1.5

How can I get MSWindows to launch NEURON when I double click on a hoc file?

You must be using an ancient version of NEURON. Here's how to tell Windows 95/98/NT to open hoc files with NEURON

How do I compile mod files? I've been putting them in c:\nrn\bin and then running mknrndll . Is there a better way to do this?

It's a bad idea to copy, delete, or rename files in ($NEURONHOME)/bin, because a careless error could break your installation of NEURON. Here's a preferable approach.

I've installed NEURON but I don't see any hoc or mod files on my computer.

Windows Explorer is hiding things from you. This is fine if you only use prepackaged applications like Word or Excel. However, if you're going to develop models, then you're developing software (regardless of whether you do it with NEURON's GUI tools or by writing hoc code), and you'll need to know exactly what's on your PC. Among other things, you have to be able to recognize file types, which means you must see file extensions. Specifically, you need to configure Windows Explorer to show details and show all files. It's also a good idea to display the full path in the title bar and to have Windows Explorer use a two panel display, so that the directory structure of your drive ("folders") is shown in the left panel and the contents of the current directory (current "folder") are shown on the right. Finally, unless you have a giant monitor with lots of space to waste, get rid of "Web style" appearance and use "Classic style."

NotePad won't let me create a .hoc or .mod file. It keeps sticking ".txt" onto the end of file names!

NotePad does this when you save to a new file, but you can prevent it from happening by enclosing the file name in quotes, e.g. "myfile.hoc" or "mymechanism.mod". You only have to do this the first time you save to a file.
If you're going to do serious program development, you might want to try a different text editing program, and I don't mean WordPad or Word. There are some excellent alternatives, including freeware.

Can I cut and paste to and from NEURON's interpreter window?

Yes, however the usual MSWin keyboard shortcuts ^C and ^V don't work in the terminal as they have special meanings there, so you have to use the mouse.

In the Windows 10 console (cmd.exe) or in the version of bash distributed with NEURON, copy text by selecting it and pressing enter. Paste by right clicking.