How to set default working directory in Emacs - troubleshooting

Question

I know this has been posted many times, but the solutions are not working for me. I\'ve tried the following solutions from this post (Changing the default folder in Emacs):<

Answer 1

I just tested and it behaved fine with regards to Default-Directory. My settings are as follows:

emacs.exe in c:\bin\emacs\bin

%PATH% includes c:\bin\emacs\bin\

%HOME% set to %USERPROFILE (C:\Users\)

Direct from Run-box

Win+remacs -qRET

(message "%s" default-directory) => "C:\Users\jonpe/"

From cmd.exe after changing directory

Win+rcmdRET

cd c:\users\publicRET

emacs -qRET

(message "%s" default-directory) => "C:\Users\Public/"

Do you have emacs added to your %PATH% variable?

If I try to launch emacs by browsing to it's location then launching the default directory is set to the executable location.