Recent Emacs on Windows gets errors trying to recursively load during startup. I'm using prebuilt msix installer from kiennq (https://github.com/kiennq/emacs-build), and both the ucrt and regular versions show this bug. I have not built Emacs myself on Windows in a while, but the kiennq builds are usually solid. Emacs -Q is OK, but this minimal setup shows the problem: In $HOME/.config/emacs/init.el: (setq load-prefer-newer t) Then start Emacs as usual. You will see startup taking a lot more time than usual, and then in *Messages* you'll see many errors like this one: Error muted by safe_call: (apply native--compile-async ( "c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/emacs-lisp/cl-extra.el.gz" nil late)) signaled (error "Recursive load" "c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/jka-compr.el.gz" "c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/jka-compr.el.gz" "c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/jka-compr.el.gz" "c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/jka-compr.el.gz" "c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/jka-compr.el.gz" "c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/emacs-lisp/ring.el.gz" "c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/comint.elc" "c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/progmodes/compile.elc") As you can see, these errors are suppressed in this test case, but in a real Emacs session, later on the same errors prevent loading various files, so my init.el never finishes loading. As an example of that, I get this error with my actual emacs config: error: Recursive load, c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/jka-compr.el.gz, c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/jka-compr.el.gz, c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/jka-compr.el.gz, c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/jka-compr.el.gz, c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/jka-compr.el.gz, c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/emacs-lisp/radix-tree.el.gz, c:/Program Files/WindowsApps/emacs-k_31.340.0.0_x64__tewns1xw2exn6/share/emacs/31.0.50/lisp/emacs-lisp/loaddefs-gen.elc, c:/Users/garyo/.config/emacs/lisp/elpaca-bootstrap.el, c:/Users/garyo/.config/emacs/init.el In GNU Emacs 31.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2025-05-01 built on fv-az1115-294 Repository revision: 3b18648e3daf021a37ca8aa71ee69fb3e8b79de9 Repository branch: HEAD Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.22635 System Description: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (v10.0.2009.22635.5025) Configured using: 'configure --prefix=/d/a/emacs-build/emacs-build/pkg/3b18648-ucrt-x86_64 'CFLAGS=-O2 -fno-semantic-interposition -floop-parallelize-all -ftree-parallelize-loops=4 -g3 ' --disable-build-details --without-dbus --enable-link-time-optimization --enable-build-details --with-compress-install --with-small-ja-dic --with-gif --with-gnutls --with-harfbuzz --with-jpeg --with-json --with-lcms2 --with-mps --with-native-compilation --with-png --with-rsvg --with-tree-sitter --with-xml2 --with-xpm --with-zlib --without-cairo --without-tiff' Configured features: ACL GIF GMP GNUTLS HARFBUZZ JPEG LCMS2 LIBXML2 MODULES MPS NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY W32NOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SOUND SQLITE3 THREADS TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER WEBP XPM ZLIB Important settings: value of $LC_ALL: value of $LC_COLLATE: C value of $LANG: en_US.utf-8 locale-coding-system: cp1252 Major mode: Elisp/l Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t eldoc-mode: t show-paren-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t minibuffer-regexp-mode: t line-number-mode: t indent-tabs-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug lisp-mnt message mailcap yank-media puny dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg rfc6068 epg-config gnus-util mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils thingatpt time-date help-fns byte-opt gv radix-tree pcase misearch multi-isearch vc-git diff-mode track-changes easy-mmode files-x vc-dispatcher compile text-property-search comint subr-x ansi-osc ansi-color ring cl-seq comp-run bytecomp byte-compile comp-common rx cl-extra help-mode warnings icons cl-loaddefs cl-lib rmc iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel touch-screen dos-w32 ls-lisp term/w32-nt disp-table term/w32-win w32-win w32-vars term/common-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic indonesian philippine cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure cl-preloaded button loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote threads w32notify w32 lcms2 multi-tty move-toolbar make-network-process tty-child-frames native-compile mps emacs) Memory information: ((conses 24 0 0) (symbols 56 0 0) (strings 40 0 0) (string-bytes 1 0) (vectors 24 0) (vector-slots 8 0 0) (floats 24 0 0) (intervals 64 0 0) (buffers 1000 0)) -- Gary