>> hmm, very mysteriously....i have really no clue what can be the problem. >> I'm running XEmacs 21.4.11 cygwin-build downloaded with the net-installer. >> Is this a mule-enabled XEmacs? How can i see this? >I think it is, see M-x emacs-version and/or (featurep 'mule). M-x emacs-version displays: "XEmacs 21.4 (patch 10) "Military Intelligence (RC5 Windows)" [Lucid] (i686-pc-cygwin) of Fri Oct 11 2002 on TSUNAMI" and (featurep 'mule) returns nil. So it seems my cygwin-bild XEmacs is not a Mule-XEmacs! But i can do "make bindist" for latest ecb without problems. I do not understand this, i have to admit. ECB has nothing to do with mule or not-mule, at least AFAIK...... What can be a reason why a file like ecb-tod.el can not be byte-compiled with a not-mule XEmacs for some people whereas a mule-XEmacs can byte-compile it. Even more confusing: My non-mule-XEmacs (s.a.) can byte-compile it.