Vimdiff failing with “Cannot read or write temp files”

Question

I\'m using Vim 7.4 on Windows 7.

I do have a custom _vimrc file, but both Vim and gVim work fine. When I try to run vimdiff .\\xxxxx .\\yyyyy, it gives the

Answer 1

Vim 8.1

I was experiencing this issue, and this answer resolved it for me.

Add this to your ~/.vimrc

set shell=$COMSPEC

For me using git for windows, this value is: C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe

Also note that in this thread every answer other than the top answer relates to changing your shell variable. So if you're someone who has stumbled upon this answer, try taking a look at that.