Tamar I've noticed that "sh" (which is invoked at lot by make etc) takes AGES to start up. At least I think it's 'sh' that is causing the delay. I think it's c:/msys64/usr/bin/sh.exe
From searching the web (eg https://www2.cs.duke.edu/csl/docs/unix_course/intro-60.html) it seems likely that it executes c:/msys64/etc/profile first. And If I put an 'echo' at the start and end of that file, they do seem to take place with a significant gap between them. I have not started sprinkling more echos, but does that ring any bells? Can I replace 'sh' with c:/msys64/usr/bin/bash.exe, which seems to be faster? (My evnt variable SHELL already points to bash.exe. ) And if so, how would I do that? An environment variable. Physically copy bash.exe to sh.exe? Or what? Thanks Simon