Re: looading locally modified files.el breaks M-x mail on windows

[Richard Stallman]

    The problem turned out to be that loading files.el redefines the
    convert-standard-filename function to do nothing other than return
    its argument.  After re-loading files.el I need to re-load w32-fns.el
    as well, since that redefines the function to work on windows.

It would be more elegant if reloading files.el would work.  However,
there are many such redefinitions.  To avoid this problem would
require changing w32-fns.el not to simply redefine any standard
functions, and we would pay a price for each one.  All in all I think
it is better to spend time on something else.

The one solution that seems reasonable to me is that at the end of
files.el it could have a list of other files to reload *if* they are
loaded already.  w32-fns.el could be on that list.  Other files whose
functions are redefined by w32-fns.el could have a similar list.
This would solve the whole problem fairly easily.