Somewhere within the two PostgreSQL mailing list threads that I link to on my home node I mention which instructions I followed. I followed a couple of steps from PostgreSQL's website and/or CYGWIN's, then I followed these instructions, (the "NT services Cygwin PostgreSQL installation procedure," recommended over PostgreSQL's instructions by several sources, including a comment to PostgreSQL's instructions on their own website), with GREAT difficulty. To solve one of the problems, I read an old post in the PostgreSQL mailing list that basically said "So what if we didn't put it in the instructions. It's in the FAQ." I spent about two weeks seeking help on PostgreSQL's mailing list, and it didn't help.

Here's one part of the instructions:

4. Cygwin PostgreSQL can fail to start or not function properly if certain files and directories have incorrect permissions. The following usually solves these kinds of problems:

$ chmod a+rwx /tmp
$ chmod a+rx /usr/bin /usr/bin/*
$ chmod a+rw /var/log # could adversely affect other daemons

I tried the first two, but the warning scared me away from the third. Maybe the third would have solved my problem...

YEAH, RIGHT!

I always look for pre-compiled distributions, but there's something seriously wrong with whoever's in charge of this stuff (and all the users who don't complain!) when, in the case of emacs, there's no indication of what to download and the unpacking instructions for Windows use a command that doesn't work.

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