Ruby/Gtk: Cygwin complete

Ruby/Gtk Installation & setup help

Ruby/Gtk installation for Windows 95, 98, ME

The instructions below will take you through the installation of a self-contained, compact Gtk-enabled Ruby interpreter based on the Cygwin compatibility layer. The procedure is quite safe, insofar as it does not directly write to any system files, and does not interfere with an MSVC- or djgpp-based installation if one already exists.

Create a new directory. For the sake of these instructions, we'll call ours C:\RUBY166, but it can be anywhere on your system.
Download the distribution archive and, if you don't already have it, also download unzip32.exe. Place them in the C:\RUBY166 directory.
Unzip the distribution archive:
C:\RUBY166> unzip32 ruby-1.6.6-gtk-0.27-cyg
Open an explorer window to C:\RUBY166, locate the Ruby166 icon, and drag it to your desktop. If you are using a different directory instead of C:\RUBY166, you need to edit the supplied env.bat file, and also right-click the shortcut and adjust its working directory under the Program tab.

Notes:

When you open the shortcut, you are given a command window whose environment is locally adjusted so that the Gtk-enabled Ruby interpreters (ruby.exe and rubyw.exe) come first in the executable path. The global Windows environment space is unchanged.
(OPTIONAL) To create a Windows file type for Ruby/Gtk scripts, open a Windows Explorer window, navigate menus through View, Folder Options, File Types, and click the New Type... button. If you already have another Ruby interpreter in place, pick an unused file extension like rbg; otherwise stick with the standard rbw extension. Under Actions, add an "Open" action that refers to C:\RUBY166\USR\LOCAL\BIN\RUBYW.EXE, and an "Edit" action that refers to the text editor of your choice. Make "Open" the default action.
At any time, uninstallation can be achieved by deleting the C:\RUBY166 disk directory and removing the shortcut from your desktop. If you created a file type as described above, you can dispose of it in the same File Types dialog.