Document Classes ⇒ caption package problem

[incredibooch]

Hi, I'm having an issue with the caption package that I don't understand.

I'm writing my PhD thesis part at home and part at school (on 2 computers). Both machines have the same installation of WinEdt using MikTex 2.5.

At school everything works fine, but when I try to run PDF TeXify at home it hangs up looking for the `caption.sty' file. Specifically

"The required file
tex\latex\caption\caption.sty
is missing. It is part of the following package:
Name: caption
Title:
"

When i try to install the package from any of a number of internet sources, the command line returns "Unknown archive file type" error.

I tried adding the package separately using the package manager to no avail. I downloaded the zipped caption directory from Ctan and extracted it to the MikTex 2.5\tex\latex directory. This created the `caption' directory in the same place as all my other packages that *do* work, but did not contain a file caption.sty. So I found a web version of caption.sty, ctrl+a, ctrl+c, ctrl+v'd it into a new file and included that in the caption directory. For some reason my compy still doesn't think it's there. any ideas?

Edit:
Also tried updating MikTex, but:
MiKTeX Update Wizard Report

Version: 2.5.2392
Date: Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Time: 20:41:48
downloading http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/TeX/CTAN/system ... .5.tar.bz2...
405432 bytes, 80.95 KB/Sec
updating package definition directory ("C:\Program Files\MiKTeX 2.5\tpm\packages")...

Error: The TPM file could not be parsed.

[sommerfee]

I downloaded the zipped caption directory from Ctan and extracted it to the MikTex 2.5\tex\latex directory. This created the `caption' directory in the same place as all my other packages that *do* work, but did not contain a file caption.sty.

See http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2htm ... all-unpack

[balf]

The reason for being unable to install the caption package is that MiKTeX nows uses a new compression format (lzma) that is not understood by MiKTeX 2.5's mpm.
If you're sure you got the last version of caption.sty, it's all right, and you only have to refresh the fndb in order that MiKTeX can find it. If it is not the last one, and you want to install it, just put the contents of the caption directory in \MiKTeX 2.5\source\latex\caption and compile caption.ins. This way you'll get caption.sty (and a few other .sty files), that you have to put in MiKTeX 2.5\tex\latex\caption (and the doc in ...\doc\latex\caption), and then refresh the fndb.

But perhaps you should install MiKTeX 2.7... If you're not too sure it will work properly, you can install it in parallel with MiKTeX 2.5 to test it.

B.A.

[cernlife]

Im getting the same error

"the required file tex\latex\caption\caption3.sty is missing"

but I do have the caption3.sty file in my tex\latex\caption directory

I am totally unsure of what to do? I have refreshed the fndb, but that does not solve the problem. What should I do?

many thanks
A