If I have a directory structure like this: /foo/pkgs/xemacs-packages /foo/pkgs/mule-packages and I configure --package-path=~/.xemacs:/foo/pkgs/ --without-mule ... Then the resulting xemacs, when run in place, has a load-path that includes subdirectories of /foo/pkgs/mule-packages. And this warning appears: (1) (warning/warning) Autoload error in: /usr/users/martin/x/pkgs/mule-packages/lisp/skk/auto-autoloads: Cannot open load file: mule I think I'm using the package system the way it was designed, and the mule-packages subdirectories should not appear on the load-path. Although I can't actually find documentation to that effect. If you (Michael or Steve) cannot reproduce this, then I'll try to fix it. But I'm having trouble understanding all the package elisp files. Clue: (packages-split-package-path) doesn't seem to know anything about package-locations. Martin