Make sure developer mode is turned on in Windows settings, this is necessary for making unprivileged symlinks.
-
Press Win+X and open PowerShell (Administrator).
-
Run these commands:
Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope LocalMachine -Force RemoteSigned
iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1')).
Close the Administrator PowerShell window and open it again.
Install some chocolatey packages:
choco install -y visualstudio2019community --params '--locale en-US'
choco install -y visualstudio2019-workload-nativedesktop
choco install -y 7zip autohotkey autologon bzip2 dejavufonts diffutils gawk git gpg4win grep gzip hackfont less make microsoft-windows-terminal neovim nodejs notepadplusplus NTop.Portable powershell-core python ripgrep sed sshfs unzip vim zip
# Copy your .ssh over to your profile directly first preferrably:
stop-service ssh-agent
sc.exe delete ssh-agent
choco install -y openssh --params '/SSHServerFeature /SSHAgentFeature /PathSpecsToProbeForShellEXEString:$env:programfiles\PowerShell\*\pwsh.exe'
refreshenv
sed -i 's/^[^#].*administrators.*/#&/g' /programdata/ssh/sshd_config
restart-service sshd.
Here are some commands for using the Chocolatey package manager.
To search for a package:
choco search patch.
To get the description of a package:
choco info patch.
To install a package:
choco install -y patch.
To uninstall a package:
choco uninstall -y patch.
To list installed packages:
choco list --local.
To update all installed packages:
choco update -y all.
Launch the terminal and choose Settings from the tab drop-down, this will open the settings json in visual studio.
In the global settings, above the "profiles" section, add:
"copyFormatting": "all",
"focusFollowMouse": true,
// If enabled, selections are automatically copied to your clipboard.
"copyOnSelect": true,
// If enabled, formatted data is also copied to your clipboard
"copyFormatting": true,
"tabSwitcherMode": "disabled",
"tabWidthMode": "equal",
"wordDelimiters": " ",
"largePasteWarning": false,
"multiLinePasteWarning": false,
"windowingBehavior": "useAnyExisting",.
In the "profiles" "defaults" section add:
"defaults":
{
// Put settings here that you want to apply to all profiles.
"adjustIndistinguishableColors": false,
"font":
{
"face": "Hack",
"size": 11
},
"antialiasingMode": "cleartype",
"cursorShape": "filledBox",
"colorScheme": "Tango Dark",
"intenseTextStyle": "bold",
"padding": "0",
"scrollbarState": "hidden"
"closeOnExit": "always"
},.
I prefer the 'SF Mono' font which you can get here:
https://github.com/supercomputra/SF-Mono-Font .
Other fonts you might like are IBM Plex Mono which you can install from:
and 'DejaVu Sans Mono' which was in the list of Chocolatey packages above.
In the "actions" section add these keybindings:
{ "command": { "action": "newTab" }, "keys": "ctrl+shift+t" },
{ "command": { "action": "nextTab" }, "keys": "ctrl+shift+right" },
{ "command": { "action": "prevTab" }, "keys": "ctrl+shift+left" }.
And REMOVE the ctrl+v binding, if you want to use ctrl+v in vim (visual
line selection.)
This gives you a sort of "tmux" for PowerShell using tabs.
Restart the terminal.
You can toggle full-screen mode with F11.
SHIFT+ALT++ will open a split pane vertically, while SHIFT+ALT+-
will open a split pane horizontally. This works in full-screen as well.
I recommend using neovim on Windows because it has working mouse support and is almost 100% compatible with vim anyway.
If you don't use vim, just add an alias for your favorite editor in your
powershell $profile, and set $env:EDITOR so that git can open it for commit
messages etc.. I will explain how to do this below.
If you are using neovim, run the following:
mkdir ~/.vim,~/AppData/Local/nvim -ea ignore
ni ~/.vimrc -ea ignore
cmd /c rmdir /Q /S $(resolve-path ~/AppData/Local/nvim)
ni -it sym ~/AppData/Local/nvim -tar $(resolve-path ~/.vim)
ri ~/.vim/init.vim -ea ignore
ni -it sym ~/.vim/init.vim -tar $(resolve-path ~/.vimrc)
ni -it sym ~/vimfiles -tar $(resolve-path ~/.vim).
For regular vim run the following:
mkdir ~/.vim -ea ignore
ni -it sym ~/vimfiles -tar $(resolve-path ~/.vim)You can edit your powershell profile with vim $profile, and reload it with . $profile.
Add the following to your $profile:
if ($env:TERM) { ri env:TERM }
$vim = resolve-path ~/.local/bin/nvim.bat
set-alias -name vim -val nvim
# Neovim is broken in ssh sessions, use regular vim.
if ($env:SSH_CONNECTION) {
$vim = resolve-path ~/.local/bin/vim.bat
ri alias:vim
}
$env:EDITOR = $vim -replace '\\','/'
ri variable:vim.
In ~/.local/bin/nvim.bat put the following for neovim:
@echo off
set TERM=
nvim %*,
and in ~/.local/bin/vim.bat put the following for regular vim:
@echo off
set TERM=
c:\windows\vim.bat %*.
This is needed for git to work correctly with native vim/neovim.
Some suggestions for your ~/.vimrc:
set encoding=utf8
set langmenu=en_US.UTF-8
let g:is_bash=1
set formatlistpat=^\\s*\\%([-*][\ \\t]\\\|\\d+[\\]:.)}\\t\ ]\\)\\s*
set ruler bg=dark nohlsearch bs=2 noea ai fo+=n undofile modeline belloff=all modeline modelines=5
set fileformats=unix,dos
set mouse=a
if !has('nvim')
set ttymouse=xterm2
endif
" Add vcpkg includes to include search path to get completions for C++.
let g:home = fnamemodify('~', ':p')
if isdirectory(g:home . 'source/repos/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows-static/include')
let &path .= ',' . g:home . 'source/repos/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows-static/include'
endif
if has('win32')
if !has('gui_running')
set termguicolors
else
set guifont=Hack:h11:cANSI
au ColorScheme * hi Normal guibg=#000000
endif
endif
if (has('win32') || has('gui_win32')) && executable('pwsh')
set shell=pwsh
set shellcmdflag=\ -ExecutionPolicy\ RemoteSigned\ -NoProfile\ -Nologo\ -NonInteractive\ -Command
endif
filetype plugin indent on
syntax enable
au BufRead COMMIT_EDITMSG,*.md setlocal spell
au BufRead *.md setlocal tw=80
" Return to last edit position when opening files.
autocmd BufReadPost *
\ if line("'\"") > 0 && line("'\"") <= line("$") |
\ exe "normal! g`\"" |
\ endif.
I use this color scheme, which is a fork of Apprentice for black backgrounds:
https://github.com/rkitover/Apprentice
You can add it with Plug or pathogen or whatever you prefer.
Now add some useful things to your powershell profile, I will present some of mine below:
Run:
vim $profileor
notepad $profile.
If you use my posh-git prompt, you'll need the git version of posh-git:
mkdir ~/source/repos -ea ignore
cd ~/source/repos
git clone https://github.com/dahlbyk/posh-git.
Here is a profile to get you started, it has a few examples of functions and aliases which you will invariably write for yourself:
chcp 65001 > $null
set-executionpolicy -scope currentuser remotesigned
set-culture en-US
# Remove Strawberry Perl MinGW stuff from PATH.
$env:PATH = ($env:PATH -split ';' | ?{ $_ -notmatch '\\Strawberry\\c\\bin$' }) -join ';'
$terminal_settings = resolve-path ~/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_*/LocalState/settings.json
if ($env:TERM) { ri env:TERM }
$vim = resolve-path ~/.local/bin/nvim.bat
set-alias -name vim -val nvim
# Neovim is broken in ssh sessions, use regular vim.
if ($env:SSH_CONNECTION) {
$vim = resolve-path ~/.local/bin/vim.bat
ri alias:vim
}
$env:EDITOR = $vim -replace '\\','/'
ri variable:vim
if (test-path ~/source/repos/vcpkg) {
$env:VCPKG_ROOT = resolve-path ~/source/repos/vcpkg
}
$env:DISPLAY = '127.0.0.1:0.0'
function megs {
gci -r $args | select mode, lastwritetime, @{name="MegaBytes"; expression = { [math]::round($_.length / 1MB, 2) }}, name
}
function cmconf {
grep -E --color 'CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE|VCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET|UPSTREAM_RELEASE' CMakeCache.txt
}
function pgrep {
get-ciminstance win32_process -filter "name like '%$($args[0])%' OR commandline like '%$($args[0])%'" | select processid, name, commandline
}
function pkill {
pgrep $args | %{ stop-process $_.processid }
}
function syslog {
get-winevent -log system | less
}
function taskslog {
get-winevent 'Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational'
}
function ltr { $input | sort lastwritetime }
function ntop { ntop.exe -s 'CPU%' $args }
function head {
$lines = if ($args.length -and $args[0] -match '^-(.+)') { $null,$args = $args; $matches[1] } else { 10 }
if (!$args.length) {
$input | select -first $lines
}
else {
gc $args | select -first $lines
}
}
set-alias -name which -val get-command
set-alias -name notepad -val '/program files/notepad++/notepad++'
# To use neovim instead of vim for mouse support:
set-alias -name vim -val nvim
if (test-path alias:diff) { ri -fo alias:diff }
# Load VS env only once.
foreach ($vs_type in 'buildtools','community') {
$vs_path="/program files (x86)/microsoft visual studio/2019/${vs_type}/vc/auxiliary/build"
if (test-path $vs_path) {
break
}
else {
$vs_path=$null
}
}
if ($vs_path -and -not $env:VSCMD_VER) {
pushd $vs_path
cmd /c 'vcvars64.bat & set' | where { $_ -match '=' } | %{
$var,$val = $_.split('=')
set-item -force "env:$var" -value $val
}
popd
}
# Chocolatey profile
$chocolatey_profile = "$env:chocolateyinstall\helpers\chocolateyprofile.psm1"
if (test-path $chocolatey_profile) { import-module $chocolatey_profile }
import-module ~/source/repos/posh-git/src/posh-git.psd1
function global:PromptWriteErrorInfo() {
if ($global:gitpromptvalues.dollarquestion) {
[char]27 + '[0;32mv' + [char]27 + '[0m'
}
else {
[char]27 + '[0;31mx' + [char]27 + '[0m'
}
}
$gitpromptsettings.defaultpromptabbreviatehomedirectory = $true
$gitpromptsettings.defaultpromptprefix.text = '$(PromptWriteErrorInfo) '
$username = $env:USERNAME
$hostname = $env:COMPUTERNAME.tolower()
$gitpromptsettings.defaultpromptwritestatusfirst = $false
$gitpromptsettings.defaultpromptbeforesuffix.text = "`n" + [char]27 + '[0m' + [char]27 + '[38;2;140;206;250m' + $username + [char]27 + '[1;97m' + '@' + [char]27 + '[0m' + [char]27 + '[38;2;140;206;250m' + $hostname + ' '
$gitpromptsettings.defaultpromptsuffix.foregroundcolor = 0xDC143C
$gitpromptsettings.windowtitle = $null
$host.ui.rawui.windowtitle = $hostname
import-module psreadline
set-psreadlineoption -editmode emacs
set-psreadlinekeyhandler -key tab -function complete
set-psreadlinekeyhandler -key uparrow -function historysearchbackward
set-psreadlinekeyhandler -key downarrow -function historysearchforward.
This profile works for "Windows PowerShell", the powershell you launch from the
Win+X menu as well. But the profile is in a different file, so you will need
to copy it there too:
mkdir ~/Documents/WindowsPowerShell
cpi ~/Documents/PowerShell/Microsoft.Powershell_profile.ps1 ~/Documents/WindowsPowerShell.
Make this symlink:
sl ~
mkdir .gnupg -ea ignore
cmd /c rmdir /Q /S $(resolve-path ~/AppData/Roaming/gnupg)
ni -it sym ~/AppData/Roaming/gnupg -tar $(resolve-path ~/.gnupg).
Then you can copy your .gnupg over, without the socket files.
To configure git to use it, do the following:
git config --global commit.gpgsign true
git config --global gpg.program 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuPG\bin\gpg.exe'.
If you've installed openssh before copying over your ~/.ssh, you will need to
fix permissions on your authorized_keys files, the easiest way to do
that is to re-run the installer with --force:
choco install -y --force openssh --params '/SSHServerFeature /SSHAgentFeature /PathSpecsToProbeForShellEXEString:$env:programfiles\PowerShell\*\pwsh.exe'If you need to fix permissions on your private key, follow these instructions:
https://superuser.com/a/1329702/226829
You can copy over your ~/.gitconfig, and run the following to set some
settings I recommend:
# SET YOUR NAME AND EMAIL HERE:
git config --global user.name "John Doe"
git config --global user.email johndoe@example.com
git config --global core.autocrlf false
git config --global push.default simple
git config --global pull.rebase true
git config --global commit.gpgsign true.
PowerShell is very different from unix shells, in both usage and programming.
This section won't teach you PowerShell, but it will give you enough information to use it as a shell and a springboard for further exploration.
You can get a list of aliases with alias and lookup specific aliases with e.g.
alias ri. It allows globs, e.g. to see aliases starting with s do alias s*.
You can get help text for any cmdlet via its long name or alias with help. To
use less instead of the default pager, do e.g.: help gci | less.
For the git man pages, do git help <command> to open the man page in your
browser, e.g. git help config.
I suggest using the short forms of PowerShell aliases instead of the POSIX
aliases, this forces your brain into PowerShell mode so you will mix things up
less often, with the exception of a couple of things like mkdir and the alias
above for which.
Here is a few:
| PowerShell alias | Full cmdlet + Params | POSIX command |
|---|---|---|
| sl | Set-Location | cd |
| gci -n | Get-ChildItem -Name | ls |
| gci | Get-ChildItem | ls -l |
| gi | Get-Item | ls -d |
| cpi | Copy-Item | cp -r |
| ri | Remove-Item | rm |
| ri -fo | Remove-Item -Force | rm -f |
| ri -r -fo | Remove-Item -Force -Recurse | rm -rf |
| gc | Get-Content | cat |
| mi | Move-Item | mv |
| mkdir | New-Item -ItemType Directory | mkdir |
| which (custom) | Get-Command | command -v, which |
| gci -r | Get-ChildItem -Recurse | find |
| ni | New-Item | touch |
| sort | Sort-Object | sort |
| sort -u | Sort-Object -Unique | sort -u |
| measure -l | Measure-Object -Line | wc -l |
| measure -w | Measure-Object -Word | wc -w |
| measure -c | Measure-Object -Character | wc -m |
| gc file | select -first 10 | Get-Content file | Select-Object -First 10 | head -n 10 file |
| gc file | select -last 10 | Get-Content file | Select-Object -Last 10 | tail -n 10 file |
| gc -wait -tail 20 some.log | Get-Content -Wait -Tail 20 some.log | tail -f -n 20 some.log |
.
This will get you around and doing stuff, the usage is slightly different however.
For one thing commands like cpi (Copy-Item) take a list of files differently
from POSIX, they must be a PowerShell list, which means separated by commas. For
example, to copy file1 and file2 to dest-dir, you would do:
cpi file1,file2 dest-dir.
To remove file1 and file2 you would do:
ri file1,file2.
You can list multiple globs in these lists as well as files and directories etc., for example:
ri .*.un~,.*.sw?.
Redirection for files and commands works like in POSIX on a basic level, that
is, you can expect <, > and | to redirect files and commands like you
would expect on a POSIX shell. The file descriptors 0, 1 and 2 are
stdin, stdout and stderr just like in POSIX. The equivalent of
/dev/null is $null, so a command such as:
cmd >/dev/null 2>&1would be:
cmd *> $null.
For ls -ltr use:
gci | sort lastwritetimeOr the alias in my profile:
gci | ltr.
Parameters can be completed with tab, so in the case above you could write
lastw<tab>.
To see hidden files, pass -Force to gci:
gci -fo.
To make a file or directory hidden do:
attrib +h fileand to make it visible do:
attrib -h file.
To make a symbolic link, do:
ni -it sym name-of-link -tar path-to-source.
Make sure the path-to-source is an absolute path, you can use tab completion
or $(resolve-path file) to ensure this.
WARNING: Do not use ri to delete a symbolic link to a directory, do this
instead:
cmd /c rmdir symlink-to-directory.
Errors for most PowerShell commands can be suppressed as follows:
mkdir existing-dir -ea ignore,
this sets ErrorAction to Ignore.
For a find replacement, use the -Recurse flag to gci, e.g.:
gci -r *.cpp.
To search under a specific directory, use this syntax:
gci -r /windows -i *.dllwill find all DLL files in all levels under C:\Windows.
PowerShell supports an amazing new system called the "object pipeline", what this means is that you can pass objects around via pipelines and inspect their properties, call methods on them, etc..
Here is an example of using the object pipeline to delete all vim undo files:
gci -r .*.un~ | ri.
It's that simple, ri notices that the input objects are files, and removes
them.
If the cmdlet works on files, they can be strings as well, for example:
gc file-list | cpi -r -dest e:/backupcopies the files and directories listed in my file to a directory on a USB stick.
You can access the piped-in input in your own functions as the special $input
variable, like in the head example in the profile above.
Here is a more typical example:
get-process | ?{ $_.name -notmatch 'svchost' } | %{ $_.name } | sort -u.
Here ?{ ... } is like filter/grep block and %{ ... } is like apply/map.
The equivalent of wc -l file to count lines is:
gc file | measure -l,
while -w will count words and -c will count characters. You can combine any
of the three in one command, the output is a table.
To get just the number of lines, you can do this:
(gc file | measure -l).lines.
Command substitution is pretty much the same as in POSIX shells, using $( ... ). For example:
vim $(gci -r *.h)
echo "This file contains $((gc README.md | measure -l).lines) lines.".
In PowerShell, the backtick ` is the escape character, and you can use it
at the end of a line, escaping the line end as a line continuation character. In
regular expressions, the backslash \ is the escape character, like everywhere
else.
Here are a couple more example of PowerShell one-liners:
# Name and command mapping for aliases starting with 'se'.
alias se* | select name, resolvedcommand
# Create new empty files foo1 .. foo7.
1..7 | %{ ni "foo$_" }
# Find the import libraries in the Windows SDK with symbol names matching
# 'MessageBox'.
gci '/program files (x86)/windows kits/10/lib/10.*/um/x64/*.lib' | `
%{ $_.name; dumpbin -headers $_ | grep MessageBox }.
The commands grep, sed, awk, rg, diff, patch, less, zip, gzip,
unzip, bzip2, ssh, vim, nvim (neovim) are the same as in Linux and
were installed in the list of packages installed from Chocolatey above.
You get node and npm from the nodejs package. You can install any NodeJS
utilities you need with npm install -g <utility>, and they will be available
in your $env:PATH.
The python tool (version 3) comes from the Chocolatey python package.
The tools cmake and ninja come with Visual Studio, if you used my sample
$profile section to set up the Visual Studio environment. You can get
dependencies from Conan or VCPKG, I recommend Conan because it has binary
packages. More on all that later when I expand this guide. Be sure to pass -G Ninja to cmake.
The tool make is a native port of GNU Make from Chocolatey. It will generally
not run regular Linux Makefiles because it expects cmd.exe shell commands.
However, it is possible to write Makefiles that work in both environments if the
commands are the same, for example the one in this repository.
The commands curl and tar are now standard Windows commands. The
implementation of tar is not particularly wonderful, it currently does not
handle symbolic links correctly and will not save your ACLs. You can save your
ACLs with icacls.
For an htop replacement, use ntop (installed in the list of Chocolatey
packages above.) with my wrapper function in the sample $profile.
You can run any cmd.exe commands with cmd /c <command>.
Many more things are available from Chocolatey and other sources of course, at varying degrees of functionality.
This is as simple as making a symbolic link to a UNC path.
For example, to mount a share on an SMB file server:
sl ~
ni -it sym work-documents -tar //corporate-server/documents.
To mount my NAS over SSHFS I can do this, assuming the Chocolatey sshfs package is installed:
sl ~
ni -it sym nas -tar //sshfs.kr/remoteuser@remote.host!2223/mnt/HD/HD_a2/rkitover.
Here 2223 is the port for ssh. Use sshfs.k instead of sshfs.kr to specify
a path relative to your home directory.
To get transparency in Microsoft terminal, use this AutoHotkey script:
#NoEnv
SendMode Input
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%
; Toggle window transparency.
#^Esc::
WinGet, TransLevel, Transparent, A
If (TransLevel = 255) {
WinSet, Transparent, 205, A
} Else {
WinSet, Transparent, 255, A
}
return.
This will toggle transparency in a window when you press Ctrl+Win+Esc, you
have to press it twice the first time.
Thanks to @munael for this tip.
Note that this will not work for the Administrator PowerShell window unless you run AutoHotkey with Administrator privileges, you can do that on startup by creating a task.