In emacsclient, if an existing Emacs server cannot be found and an alternate editor is specified, the alternate editor is started.  Along the way, emacsclient generates a warning that the server cannot be found.

On Windows, this warning is a pop-up dialog box that must be dismissed by the user.  This is an unwanted interruption, and irrelevant, since the user has already indicated by using the --alternated-editor option how to handle this situation.

The patch below suppresses this warning when the user has specified both the --quiet option and the --alternate-editor option.  The reasoning is that --quiet mutes all messages on success, and that because the --alternate-editor has been specified, this message is not reporting an error.  It seems like a reasonable compromise that will allow users to see this warning if they like (by not using --quiet) and allow users to avoid it if they like (by using --quiet).

*** emacsclient.c    Tue Jan  1 15:37:17 2013
--- emacsclient-nomsg.c    Fri Dec 13 10:05:30 2013
***************
*** 1002,1015 ****
    /* Open up an AF_INET socket.  */
    if ((s = socket (AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP)) < 0)
      {
!       sock_err_message ("socket");
        return INVALID_SOCKET;
      }
 
    /* Set up the socket.  */
    if (connect (s, (struct sockaddr *) &server, sizeof server) < 0)
      {
!       sock_err_message ("connect");
        return INVALID_SOCKET;
      }
 
--- 1002,1027 ----
    /* Open up an AF_INET socket.  */
    if ((s = socket (AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP)) < 0)
      {
!       /*
!        * If we have an alternate editor specified, then a socket error
!        * isn't really an "error" (because we'll end up invoking the
!        * alternate editor) so if asked we'll be quiet about this error
!        * message.
!        *
!        */     
!       if (!quiet || !alternate_editor) {
!     sock_err_message ("socket");
!       };
        return INVALID_SOCKET;
      }
 
    /* Set up the socket.  */
    if (connect (s, (struct sockaddr *) &server, sizeof server) < 0)
      {
!       /* See comment above for rationale about showing/not showing err */
!       if (!quiet || !alternate_editor) {
!     sock_err_message ("connect");
!       };
        return INVALID_SOCKET;
      }