how to set X resources in Cygwin?

[Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox dot com>]

summary: I'm running an up-to-date cygwin X on wxpsp3. I get both
xterm and urxvt-X to start, but cannot get either to pickup settings
from .Xdefaults or .Xresources. What am I doing wrong?

details:

I'm a former longtime cygwin user, since my former workplaces required
windows. For the past few years, I've been able to run linux as my
primary work desktop, so have been doing that. Now I'm starting at
another place that requires windows (they literally will not allow my
linux laptop on the network), so I'm desperately trying to revive my
cygwin configuration chops.

I used latest setup.exe to install latest packages onto a fresh
install of ... windows xp sp3. (A blast from the past :-) Packages
included X, xinit, xterm, rxvt-unicode, and emacs-X11. I then edited
startxwin.bat to get a multiwindow X to start xterm and urxvt, and
.Xresources to start them with desired options. The terminals are
indeed starting, but not as desired, and they just don't seem to
respond to changes to .Xresources, even if I

* `xrdb ~/.Xresources`
* shutdown/restart X (rclick on tray icon>Exit>Exit, then run startxwin.bat)
* shutdown/restart windows, then shutdown/restart X

(I also tried briefly to make the terminals load changes from
~/.Xdefaults, but I believe that is deprecated, so I didn't try too
hard.) Some things that *are* happening in accord with my .Xresources
(attached) include:

+ red keyboard cursor in xterm (BTW: how to set _mouse_ cursor color?)
+ scrollbar to right in xterm
+ S-PgUp, S-PgDn scrolls xterm
+ xterm foreground=black, background=white
+ xterm font-size ~= 8 (looks right, anyway)
+ urxvt font == "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono" (which is in my fc-list)

Some things that *aren't* happening, that I believe my .Xresources
should invoke, include

- xterm font != "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono"
- urxvt font size != 8 (it's huge, like 14 or 16)
- urxvt foreground != black && background != white (more like cream on
dark blue)
- no tabs in urxvt (which I dearly want, but I really should learn to
use `screen` anyway)

So now I'm trying to make this happen on my old wxp laptop, but am
getting identical results.
What am I doing wrong? Or are only commandline options supported?
Please find attached

startxwin.bat (attached as startxwin.txt)
~/.xinitrc (untouched by me)
~/.Xresources
XWin.0.log
cygcheck.out

If there's anything else I should do to further debug (or to actually
fix :-) this, please let me know. If I should be RTFMing, please pass
pointer(s).

TIA, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche@pobox.com>

Attachment: startXWin.txt
Description: Text document

Attachment: .xinitrc
Description: Binary data

Attachment: .Xresources
Description: Binary data

Attachment: XWin.0.log
Description: Binary data

Attachment: cygcheck.out
Description: Binary data

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