Ok, I slimmed my slime init things down to exactly what is in the SLIME README: ;;; SLIME (add-to-list 'load-path "~/mydocs/dl/slime/slime/") (setq inferior-lisp-program "sbcl") (require 'slime) (slime-setup) And I have the CVS version of SLIME. However, when I type M-x slime the following occurs: (progn (load "/home/W049945/mydocs/dl/slime/slime/swank-loader.lisp" :verbose t) (funcall (read-from-string "swank:start- server") "/cygdrive/c/DOCUME~1/W049945/LOCALS~1/Temp/slime.3140" :coding- system "iso-latin-1-unix")) (progn (load "/home/W049945/mydocs/dl/slime/slime/swank-loader.lisp" :verbose t) (funcall (read-from-string "swank:start- server") "/cygdrive/c/DOCUME~1/W049945/LOCALS~1/Temp/slime.3140" :coding- system "iso-latin-1-unix")) This is SBCL 1.0.9, an implementation of ANSI Common Lisp. More information about SBCL is available at <http://www.sbcl.org/>. SBCL is free software, provided as is, with absolutely no warranty. It is mostly in the public domain; some portions are provided under BSD-style licenses. See the CREDITS and COPYING files in the distribution for more information. This is experimental prerelease support for the Windows platform: use at your own risk. "Your Kitten of Death awaits!" * debugger invoked on a SB-INT:SIMPLE-FILE-ERROR: "\\home\\W049945\\mydocs\\dl\\slime\\slime\\swank-loader.lisp" does not exist. Type HELP for debugger help, or (SB-EXT:QUIT) to exit from SBCL. restarts (invokable by number or by possibly-abbreviated name): 0: [ABORT] Exit debugger, returning to top level. (SB-FASL::INTERNAL-LOAD #P"\\home\\W049945\\mydocs\\dl\\slime\\slime\\swank-loader.lisp" NIL :ERROR T NIL NIL :DEFAULT) 0]