Vim Vundle installation on windows: unknown function vundle#begin

Question

I am a beginner with Vim and I am trying to install Vundle for plugin management. However I keep getting the same error when I open gVim:

Error detected while processing C:\Users\jacob\Vim\_vimrc:
line    5:
E117: Unknown function: vundle#begin
line    7:
E492: Not an editor command: Plugin 'VundleVim/Vundle.vim'
line    9:
E117: Unknown function: vundle#end

I am working on windows 10 and this is how my _vimrc file looks like:

set nocompatible             
filetype off                 

set rtp+=$HOME/.vim/bundle/Vundle.vim/
call vundle#begin('$HOME/.vim/bundle/')

Plugin 'VundleVim/Vundle.vim'

call vundle#end()            " required
filetype plugin indent on    " required

Answer 1

Looks like you missed some steps of the installation, that would clone the Vundle git repository under the $HOME/.vim/bundle directory, creating a Vundle.vim subdirectory there which would have an autoload/vundle.vim which is where functions such as vundle#begin would be searched.

See the Quick Start guide for further instructions. In particular for your case, there's also a link to a quite detailed Windows setup document with many details on how to get the components you need to install Vundle.

You might also want to consider vim-plug as an alternative to Vundle. It's newer and actively maintained, while at the same time using a similar model to Vundle, supporting a similar set of commands and using similar configuration directives. It's also much easier to install, also on Windows. (It only needs a single file to be downloaded.)

Answer 2

Perhaps a bit on the late side, but I also received the same error. After diagnosing what has happened I came to the following problem and solution:

The problem is that using GIT to clone the files, this downloades the Vundle directory to the filepath: ~/vimfiles/bundle/Vundle.vim to the Windows home directory. the final filepath on Windows would then look like: C:\Users\User1~\vimfiles\bundle\Vundle.vim . However the _vimrc files is located under the directory C:\Users\User1\

The sollution is to copy the folder "vimfiles" to the user1 directory (exchange user1 for your own username). The final filepath for the Vundle files should then be C:\Users\User1\vimfiles\bundle\Vundle.vim .