- apply for admin privileges on your laptop
- exploration
- which areas outside can you reach (and how: https, ssh, irregular ports)?
- CryptDrive (…)
- my home NAS
- HS
- which areas outside can you reach (and how: https, ssh, irregular ports)?
- Microsoft PowerToys
- … zones … (for splitting huge screens)
- Microsoft Sysinternals
- process explorer
- PuTTY
- ssh (already comes with Windows, but YOU NEED TO SET UP YOUR CONNECTIONS – e.g. for backing up YOUR FILES (diary, tools, git repositories, …))
- GNU Emacs
- Git Bash
- UNIX (AKA Linux) utilities
- perl
- git
- …
- xmlstarlet
- my own tool set
- create_snapshot.sh
- MEGA IMPORTANT: continuous automatic backup of YOUR FILES
- for as long as “automatic” is not yet possible and established
- the “emergency action” must get established (REMEMBER the c*m*l dr*v*r with his fierceful face expression and his kalashnikov!!!)
- backing up must get executed a couple of times each day
- TARring
- syncing
- maybe: “git archive”
- for as long as “automatic” is not yet possible and established
- …
- ??? busybox “w32”, preferredly with Unicode support
- WSL – Windows Subsystem for Linux
- …
Category: emacs on Windows
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my 2026 Windows working environment
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Emacs and Microsoft Windows
- https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Microsoft-Windows.html
- https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/efaq-w32.html
- C:\Program Files\Emacs\x86_64\share\emacs\VER\README.W32 – read it! for serious!
- C:\Program Files\Emacs\x86_64\bin\ – where the utilities are located
- https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/
- https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/emacs/
I use to download and install emacs-VER-x86_64.zip , it contains “a large number of optional dependencies for Emacs” – maybe you want to install that into c:\opt\emacs-VER\.
emacs-VER-installer.exe – a Windows installer – installs into C:\Program Files\Emacs\ .
Utilities described in the README.32 – read their entries (!):
- addpm.exe
- runemacs.exe
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Git for Windows – comes with a nice minimal GNU shell environment
- https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/wiki/FAQ
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mingw-w64#MSYS2 – GfW is based on MSYS2; MSYS2 provides a Unix environment to Windows
- https://www.msys2.org – …
- https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/download.html#windows – MSYS2 users can install GNU Emacs using a pacman command line
- http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/ – I wonder whether I can get this GNU Emacs for Windows to cooperate with the MSYS2 provided by GfW
- https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Microsoft-Windows.html
- I guess the ordinary way to start GfW is through “Git Bash” in the “Git” group, that you reach through “Start”
- but I like ConEmu better than mintty, and I can start “C:\Program Files\Git\bin/bash.exe”
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my 2021 Windows working environment
I would actually rather prefer Windows Terminal over ConEmu, because I assume it will be the new standard in the Windows world – but then in my professional Windows environment Group Policies do not allow “apps” – and then … ConEmu is quite nice.
Windows Terminal (CAVEAT: did no achieve it):
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Terminal
- https://aka.ms/terminal
- https://aka.ms/terminal-docs
- https://github.com/microsoft/terminal
ConEmu – a Windows console alternative, where you can paste text w/o using the mouse 😎
Last not least: WSL resp. WSL2:
My WSL is still a pre-GUI WSL, because my Windows 10 is not new enough – I can’t get my Windows admins to update my Windows 10 in order to achieve that.
Within WSL I run CentOS-7, because it makes me more used to what I need these days.
And …:
- https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/download.html
- MSYS2 (Emacs for Windows uses a minimal set of MSYS2) (CAVEAT: did no achieve it)
- https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/efaq-w32.html#MinGW
- 7-zip
- …
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EmacsWiki: NTEmacs With Cygwin
This is great!!!
Now I can do “Search Files…” in Emacs’s dired-mode again — just like “everywhere”.
How to get it to start in the user’s home directory? Create a shortcut for runemacs.exe, move it to AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\ ! Modify the properties of that shorcut accordingly!
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my 2017 Windows working environment
All these packages resp. utilities do not require Windows admin rights for getting them “installed” – actually they do not need “a Windows system installation”.
Below C:\Users\jhayek I created a couple of subdirectories:
- opt: every package resp. utility has its own subdirectory below there
- bin: some .bat and .sh (BusyBox ash) scripts go there
Packages resp. utilities:
- GNU Emacs
- busybox-w32: includes a shell and a lot of Unix utilities
- Strawberry Perl
- https://ConEmu.github.io — a Windows console alternative, where you can paste text w/o using the mouse 😎
- xmlstarlet
After having worked with this set-up for a couple of days, I have to admit: this is not just a minimalist Unix-ish working environment, but it is rather enjoyable working environment. I do not have the GNU utilities with all their advantages (nice long command line options and lots of features) – but for most purposes the utilities built into busybox-w32 are good enough for my purposes. What a great idea it was to think of “busybox for Windows” a couple of days ago – and actually find “busybox-w32”!!! I had to consider a lightweight alternative of Cygwin, because on my new client’s Windows computers it’s not available.
ConEmu makes busybox-w32 and its shell (the “ash”) even more enjoyable.
GNU Emacs is as good as always – I can’t really describe how sad it is to not have it available in a serious working environment.
Strawberry Perl so far has all the modules, that my utilities need. I am really glad to have that “distribution”.
xmlstarlet is my XPath and XML Swiss Army Knife.
With all these utilities and packages available it’s even quite fun to work on Windows 7 😆