"Robert Pluim" <rpluim(a)gmail.com&gt; writes: Yes. This changed recently (back to 21.4 behavior) with: 2005-12-30 Mike Sperber <mike(a)xemacs.org&gt; * packages.el (packages-find-all-package-hierarchies): Interpret EMACSPACKAGEPATH as listing package direcories, not hierarchies. This fixes a regression introduced in the change on 2005-01-08. For an explanation of the difference between "hierarchies" and "directories", see the top of packages.el: ;;; A *package hierarchy* is a directory that contains a collection of ;;; packages; it has lisp/, info/, etc/ etc. subdirectories that ;;; contain the files constituting the packages. ;;; A *package directory* contains package hierarchies---the package ;;; hierarchies are typically in directories "xemacs-packages", ;;; "mule-packages", and so on. A package hierarchy might only be ;;; applicable for specific variants of XEmacs. -- Cheers =8-} Mike Friede, Völkerverständigung und überhaupt blabla