Well, it’s a common issue it would seem, so I’m writing a quick howto.

This howto requires that you know where GTK+ is installed,

  • If you install a runtime package, it will commonly be installed to
    C:\Program Files\Common Files\Gtk
  • If you install a devel package, it will let you choose, but it will default to
    C:\GTK
  • If you just use binary packages, or build from source, I think I can trust you to know where you installed it :)

Alright, now onto the work. I’ll cover XP first:

  1. Right-click on My Computer, then select “Properties”.
  2. Click the “Advanced” tab in the dialog that pops up, and click the “Environment Variables” button near the bottom.
  3. Under “System variables”, click the “New” button and enter “GTK_BASEPATH” (no quotes) as the name, and the path to where GTK is installed as the value.
  4. Now find the variable named “Path”, and click the “Edit” button.
  5. Press the Home key to go the beginning of the entry, and add “%GTK_BASEPATH%\bin;” (no quotes) to the beginning. Note that the ‘;’ at the end is very important.
  6. Now click all the OK buttons until the dialogs are gone. You’re done!

Now I will cover Vista:

  1. Press the Windows key on your keyboard, or press the start button
  2. Right click on “Computer” and select Properties
  3. In the left side-bar, select “Advanced system settings”, you’ll need administrator rights to continue
  4. Click the “Environment Variables” button near the bottom
  5. Now do steps 3 through 6 of the XP instructions. You’re done!

I hope that this will help somebody out.