Cygwin PostgreSQL seems to work fine

If you've ever tried to install PostgreSQL under Windows, you know,
despite the help offered by several FAQs and on these lists, it can be a
pain.

Mercifully, the latest cygwin downloads include PostgreSQL, and it works
fine, almost out of the box.

1) Install cygwin from www.cygwin.com.
2) Donwload the binary cygipc distribtuion from
http://www.neuro.gatech.edu/users/cwilson/cygutils/V1.1/cygipc/

(Tested w/cygipc 1.09-2)
3) Move the cygipc tarball to the root of your cygwin installation
(by default, c:\cygwin)
4) In cygwin, unpack this with:
tar xzvf /cygipc-1.09-2.tar.gz
5) Start cygipc running with /usr/local/bin/ipc-daemon &
6) initdb -D /var/pgsql
7) pg_ctl -D /var/pgsql
8) psql template1

Worked fine for me, and much easier than the tangle of things to try
when working from the source install.

(Tried on Win2000 professional & Win2000 server).

The short story: if you've tried before and given up, try now.

HTH,

--
Joel Burton <jburton(at)scw(dot)org>
Director of Information Systems, Support Center of Washington