Dotfiles - Windows

Requirements

In order to enjoy full terminal experience I highly recommend to install one of the Nerd Fonts. For Windows 11 I currently use JetBrainsMono Nerd Font version 2.3.3.

The PowerShell profile loads the Terminal-Icons and z modules. Therefore it is assumed you have those installed before pulling and applying the new configuration.

Usage

Configuration

Fork this repository and follow the steps below:

Note: To make your life easier, ensure that the initial branch name is main by using git config --global init.defaultBranch main. I also recommend to use PowerShell 7 version and above as it supports some additional features like AND and OR operators.

Create a new dotfiles directory in your home folder and initialize a bare repository.

New-Item -Path $HOME\dotfiles -ItemType Directory -Force; git init --bare $HOME\dotfiles

Optionally hide this folder from explorer directory listening

Set-ItemProperty -Path $HOME\dotfiles -Name Attributes -Value ([System.IO.FileAttributes]::Hidden)

Create a runtime function.

function config()
{
    git.exe --git-dir=$HOME\dotfiles --work-tree=$HOME $args
}

Optionally hide untracked files.

config config --local status.showUntrackedFiles no

Configure the upstream repository, update remote path with your username.

config remote add origin git@github.com:maroskukan/dotfiles-win

Note: In order to add origin accessed through SSH it is assumed that you have completed SSH client configuration.

Pull

It is time to pull from origin.

config pull origin main

When performing pull for the first time, you may be presented with an error because there might be local untracked files that could be overwritten by the merge.

For example:

From github.com:maroskukan/dotfiles-win
 * branch            main       -> FETCH_HEAD
 * [new branch]      main       -> origin/main
error: The following untracked working tree files would be overwritten by merge:
        AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe/LocalState/settings.json
Please move or remove them before you merge.
Aborting

This is a safety feature, and I suggest to review and backup any existing files are in conflict and running the config pull origin main again.

mv $HOME/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe/LocalState/settings.json `
   $HOME/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe/LocalState/settings.json.backup

config pull origin main

Push

When you updated a local file (e.g. README.md), you can sync up your changes using the following workflow.

config add README.md
config commit -m "feat: update workflow for change"
config push

Tips

Windows PowerShell

When enabling starship prompt in the built-in Windows PowerShell profile, it is necessary to update the execution policy.

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Otherwise an error will be displayed everytime you lauch the Windows PowerShell.

 File C:\Users\mk\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 cannot be loaded because running
scripts is disabled on this system. For more information, see about_Execution_Policies at
https:/go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=135170

This does not affect the newer PowerShell.