To help with this, it is useful to move the vimrc into the vimfiles directory so that it can be synchronised at the same time as the various plugins. Move your .vimrc or _vimrc into the vimfiles directory and rename it to vimrc. Do the same with .gvimrc if you have one. Create a new .vimrc (or _vimrc) in an appropriate place (e.g. the home directory on Linux or the "vim" directory in Windows) containing the following: " Load the first file named 'vimrc' found in runtimepath runtime vimrc As a very brief (and possibly unnecessary) example of use, some useful subversion commands follow: