# Using Gems on windows

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-gems-on-windows/56975>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 6, 2006, 6:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-gems-on-windows/56975 "2006-04-06T06:12:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![William\_SBillS\_Froe](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/e0b2c6/32.png) [@William\_SBillS\_Froe](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/William_SBillS_Froe)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2006, 6:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-gems-on-windows/56975/1 "2006-04-06T06:12:11Z")

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This is probably a newbie question but are there any issues with using  
certain gems on Windows XP?

I’m running the InstantRails 1.1a and have been trying to experiment  
with some of the gems.

Specifically I’m trying to use midilib and pdf-writer. I’ve installed  
both via

gem install midilib  
gem install pdf-writer --include-dependencies

and both installed successfully as expected and pdf-writer also prompted  
and installed the dependant gems as needed. However if I then go into  
an irb session I get false returned when trying to require them.

irb(main):001:0\> require ‘rubygems’  
=\> true  
irb(main):002:0\> require ‘midilib’  
=\> false  
irb(main):003:0\> require ‘pdf/writer’  
=\> false  
irb(main):004:0\>

The other gems I have tried have all worked as expected and returned  
true when requiring them in this fashion. Can anyone point me in the  
right direction as to what I am / have done wrong?

Perhaps they are just not compatible with irb? I say this only because  
the pdf-writer demo.rb file (once modified to require ‘rubygems’) runs  
without error when doing ruby demo.rb.

–Bill

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![William\_SBillS\_Froe](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/e0b2c6/32.png) [@William\_SBillS\_Froe](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/William_SBillS_Froe)\
**Post date:** [April 6, 2006, 7:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-gems-on-windows/56975/2 "2006-04-06T07:01:01Z")

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William (Bill) Froelich wrote:

> […] However if I then go into  
> an irb session I get false returned when trying to require them.  
> […] Can anyone point me in the  
> right direction as to what I am / have done wrong?

You have done nothing wrong. There is no problem. If there were an  
error, require would have thrown an exception. See  
[http://docs.rubygems.org/read/chapter/19#page100](http://docs.rubygems.org/read/chapter/19#page100) for more details.

–  
– Jim W.