If after years on Linux (or MacOS) you find yourself using an administrated Microsoft Windows machine, then you may recover many tools from Linux and adapt it to your muscle-memory by cherry-picking some of the advice below:

Scoop

Use scoop.sh to install all applications into your personal folder %USERPROFILE%, the analog of $HOME. Some suggestions, in particular of command-line tools (whose installation Scoop by default restricts to):

    git delta
    clink
    vim-nightly

    less bat

    fd 
    grep ripgrep ag
    sed gawk 

    fzf peco 

    curl wget aria2

    ntop
    lf
    gow 
    ctags
    shellcheck
    make 
    gopass
    poppler

    python nodejs perl lua

Unix Tools

Install Gow, a collection of (older versions of) Unix tools, as a fall back in case you did not install the package (with )he most recent version) of the tool itself (say less, grep, sed, gawk, curl or wget).

ntop is the Microsoft Windows analog of htop.
lf is a Go version of ranger that runs in particular natively on Windows.
gopass implements the password-store (and many more features) in particular on Windows.
poppler extracts text from PDF files (useful for treating them on the command-line).

Vim

The current version of vim is linked to 32-bit (x86) DLLs of Python 3.6 which can be installed by scoop install python@3.6.9 -a 32 (but beware of updating the python package). vim-nightly instead is linked to 64-bit DLLs of Python 3.10; use the package python310 (from the Scoop bucket Versions) instead of python (from bucket Main) to ensure that an update by scoop keeps the major version 3.10.

bucket add versions && scoop install python310

To let Vim find the Python character encodings, the environment variable PYTHONHOME had to be set to %USERPROFILE%\scoop\apps\python310\current.

Clink for CMD.exe

cmd.exe continues to be the standard shell for many applications. Clink (installable by Scoop) adds features known from GNU Readline, best known from Bash, to its terminal Conhost; most notably : a command history, command completion and line-editing bindings. To launch clink with Conhost, append /K clink inject to the command in the properties’ sheet of the cmd.exe shortcut in Start Menu.

To recover the most essential aliases under the cmd.exe prompt, put them into a folder listed in %PATH% (conveniently set by Rapidee, say).

To jump to frecent (= frequent and recent) directories by typing z and a partial match of their path (say z Doc to change directory to %USERPROFILE%\Documents), put z.lua into a folder listed in %PATH% and (a link to it) %CLINK_DIR%.

To customize the color scheme of the cmd.exe terminal Conhost, download colortool run in the cmd shell, say,

colortool -b .\schemes\solarized_dark.itermcolors

Then open the properties sheet and hit “Ok” to apply the dark Solarized color scheme.

PowerShell

See my Powershell profile to bring muscle memory from Linux back to fruition by some aliases to search text in files, for rsync, to navigate the file system, operate on the clipboard, … and much more; loading the modules:

PSReadLine for Readline bindings
PSReadLineHistory and lookup of previous commands
PSFzf for fuzzy finding files, folders and previous commands
posh-git for a Git status prompt
z to jump to frecent (= frequent and recent) directories by typing z and a partial match of their path (say z Doc to change directory to %USERPROFILE%\Documents) (or, alternatively use again z.lua)
PSEverything for searching the indexed hard disc
Recycle for sending files to the Recycle bin (instead of deleting them), and
pscx for miscellaneous helper tools.

Git

Symbolic Links

If you have admin rights, then you can grant your account the right to create symbolic links. However, as a mere user without admin rights, you cannot create symbolic (or soft) links, but you can instead create junctions (to folders) and hard links (to files). Thus, a symbolic link in a repository cannot be recreated but is replaced by a text file containing the path it links to. As a remedy, add the following code snippet to %USERPROFILE%/.config/git/config and run git rm-symlinks to replace all the repository’s soft links by hard links:

# From https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5917249/git-symlinks-in-windows/16754068#16754068
rm-symlinks = "!__git_rm_symlinks() {\n  case \"$1\" in (-h)\n    printf 'usage: git rm-symlinks [symlink] [symlink] [...]\\n'\n    return 0\n  esac\n  ppid=$$\n  case $# in\n    (0) git ls-files -s | grep -E '^120000' | cut -f2 ;;\n    (*) printf '%s\\n' \"$@\" ;;\n  esac | while IFS= read -r symlink; do\n    case \"$symlink\" in\n      (*/*) symdir=${symlink%/*} ;;\n      (*) symdir=. ;;\n    esac\n\n    git checkout -- \"$symlink\"\n    src=\"${symdir}/$(cat \"$symlink\")\"\n\n    posix_to_dos_sed='s_^/\\([A-Za-z]\\)_\\1:_;s_/_\\\\\\\\_g'\n    doslnk=$(printf '%s\\n' \"$symlink\" | sed \"$posix_to_dos_sed\")\n    dossrc=$(printf '%s\\n' \"$src\" | sed \"$posix_to_dos_sed\")\n\n    if [ -f \"$src\" ]; then\n      rm -f \"$symlink\"\n      cmd //C mklink //H \"$doslnk\" \"$dossrc\"\n    elif [ -d \"$src\" ]; then\n      rm -f \"$symlink\"\n      cmd //C mklink //J \"$doslnk\" \"$dossrc\"\n    else\n      printf 'error: git-rm-symlink: Not a valid source\\n' >&2\n      printf '%s =/=> %s  (%s =/=> %s)...\\n'           \"$symlink\" \"$src\" \"$doslnk\" \"$dossrc\" >&2\n      false\n    fi || printf 'ESC[%d]: %d\\n' \"$ppid\" \"$?\"\n\n    git update-index --assume-unchanged \"$symlink\"\n  done | awk '\n    BEGIN { status_code = 0 }\n    /^ESC\\['\"$ppid\"'\\]: / { status_code = $2 ; next }\n    { print }\n    END { exit status_code }\n  '\n}\n__git_rm_symlinks"

Proxy Setup

If your internet connection uses a proxy, say http://proxy.com at port 8888, add the following lines to %USERPROFILE%/.config/git/config to connect with the default user account

[http]
  sslbackend = schannel
  proxy = http://:@proxy.com:8888

To switch authentication methods (as implemented by curl among basic, digest, ntlm, negotiate), say to negotiate, add the line

  proxyauthmethod = negotiate

SSH

Windows 10 version 1803 (April 2018) or above comes with an OpenSSH client. To stop Git asking for the SSH passphrase, enable the OpenSSH(-agent) by:

Get-Service ssh-agent | Set-Service -StartupType Automatic -PassThru | Start-Service

and set the environment variable %GIT_SSH% to C:\Windows\system32\OpenSSH\ssh.exe (provided Windows was installed on C:).

See here for further set-up.

Git Bash

To use a Linux shell under Windows, there is WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), but it uses (in the default version 2) a virtual machine whose installation needs administrator rights. Instead, Git BASH to the rescue that loads your .profile and .bash_profile profile (but not .bashrc) and .inputrc (in %USERPROFILE%) for setting up your aliases, functions, … and readline bindings.

It comes with tig and respects your .tigrc.

Tools

Reuse z.lua (or the original z.sh) to jump to a frecent directory by a part of its path is a worth-wile addition. Have a look at sensible.bash to enable the most basic features and oh-my-bash for many more. Many useful functions consist of merely a couple of lines, such as

rdm() {
  files="$(find . -maxdepth 1 \( -iname '*read*me*' -o -iname '*lies*mich*' -o -iname '*lisez*moi*' -o -iname '*leia*me*' -o -iname '*leggi*mi*' -o -iname '*lee*me*' \))"
  if [ -n "$files" ]; then
    "${PAGER:-less}" $files
    # In less, optionally view file $EDITOR (or $VISUAL) by hitting 'v'
  else
    builtin print 'No README files.'
  fi
}

to view the first found Readme file. Be aware though that Git Bash comes with its proper gpg (in /usr/bin/gpg) that cannot share its keys with gpg.exe (in %PATH%). One workaround is to use gpg.exe in %PATH% in Git Bash by overriding its built-in gpg by putting into $PATH the following shell script:

gpg="$(type 2>/dev/null -a gpg | head | tail -n 1)"
gpg=${gpg#* * }
echo $gpg
if [ "$gpg" != "$0" ] && command -v "$gpg" > /dev/null 2>&1; then
  $gpg "$@"
elif command -v gpg > /dev/null 2>&1; then
  gpg "$@"
else
  exit 127
fi

Package Management

If you installed Git as a user (say by Scoop, in case it did not come pre-installed), install Pacman to add many Linux packages (other than Vim, Tig, … that come with Git Bash), such as the e-mail client Mutt.

Environment Variables

To let Java write Unicode to the console, add the environment variable %_JAVA_OPTIONS% with value _JAVA_OPTIONS = -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8; further suggestions

HOME = %USERPROFILE%
EDITOR = %USERPROFILE%\scoop\apps\vim\current\vim.exe
PAGER = less
BROWSER = firefox
PDFVIEWER = mupdf
XDG_CACHE_HOME = %USERPROFILE%\.cache
XDG_CONFIG_HOME = %USERPROFILE%\.config
XDG_STATE_HOME = %USERPROFILE%\.local\state
XDG_DATA_HOME = %USERPROFILE%\.local\share

Windows Terminal

Install the Windows Terminal (say by scoop bucket add extras && scoop install windows-terminal), and configure it by changing its settings.json (by hitting Ctrl-Alt-, inside it) as follows:

To launch Git Bash:

"profiles": 
    "list": 
    [ {
            "commandline": "%USERPROFILE%/scoop/apps/git/current/usr/bin/bash.exe -i -l",
            "icon": "%USERPROFILE%/scoop/apps/git/current/mingw64/share/git/git-for-windows.ico",
            "startingDirectory": "%USERPROFILE%",
            "tabTitle": "Git Bash",
    } ]

If Git is installed in its standard path, then replace the commandline and icon strings by

            "commandline": "%PROGRAMFILES%/git/usr/bin/bash.exe -i -l",
            "icon": "%PROGRAMFILES%/Git/mingw64/share/git/git-for-windows.ico",

To use Clink in the cmd.exe command prompt:

"profiles": 
    "list": 
    [ { "commandline": "cmd /k clink inject", } ]

To start Powershell with an empty terminal:

"profiles": 
    "list": 
    [ { "commandline": "pwsh -NoLogo", } ]

to use Ctrl-Shift-V to paste instead of Ctrl-V (which starts visual block mode in Vim):

"actions": 
    [
        { "command": "unbound", "keys": "ctrl+v" },
        { "command": "paste", "keys": "ctrl+shift+v" },
    ]

to toggle Focus Mode (that hides the tabs) by hitting F12

"actions": 
    [ { "command": "toggleFocusMode", "keys": "f12" }, ]

Window Manager

win-10-virtual-desktop-enhancer

The Autohotkey script win-10-virtual-desktop-enhancer brings back the key bindings of Window Managers such as i3, dwm (or its fork Awesome) to switch virtual desktops, provided that the section KeyboardShortcutsModifiers of its settings file settings.ini contains

[KeyboardShortcutsModifiers]
SwitchDesktopNum=Win
MoveWindowToDesktopNum=Win, Shift

PowerToys

Powertoys finds the windows scattered all over the virtual desktops; install it via Scoop by

scoop bucket add versions
scoop install dotnet3-sdk PowerToys

Run-or-Raise

A run-or-raise application switcher (such as jumpapp on X11) can be achieved by AutoHotKey with a ahk script containing the function

; From https://gist.github.com/dewaka/c494543b4cd2a2dcd09cc5a6aa0f7517
RunOrRaise(exePath, winID:="") {
  if (winID = "") {
    exeName := substr(exePath, instr(exePath, "\",, 0)+1)
    winID := "ahk_exe " exeName
  }
  If not WinExist(winID) {
    EnvGet, UserProfile, USERPROFILE
    Run, %exePath%, %UserProfile%
    WinWait, % winID
    WinActivate
  }
  else {
    If WinExist(winID) {
      If WinActive() {
        WinWait, % winID
        WinMinimize
      }
      else {
        WinWait, % winID
        WinActivate
      }
    }
  }
}

used as follows to run or raise Excel by simultaneously pressing Windows+X, Gvim by Windows+G, TotalCommander by Windows+T and the standard browser by Windows+B …:

#Return::RunOrRaise("wt.exe", "ahk_exe WindowsTerminal.exe")

#x::
  excel = %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\EXCEL.EXE
  RunOrRaise(excel, "ahk_class XLMAIN")
  Return
#g::
  EnvGet, UserProfile, USERPROFILE
  gvim = %UserProfile%\scoop\apps\vim\current\gvim.exe
  RunOrRaise(gvim, "ahk_class Vim")
  Return
#t::
	EnvGet, Commander_Path, COMMANDER_PATH
	totalcmd = %Commander_Path%\totalcmd64.exe
	RunOrRaise(totalcmd)
  Return

; From https://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/67330-how-to-open-default-web-browser/
DefaultBrowser() {
	; Find the Registry key name for the default browser
	RegRead, BrowserKeyName, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.html\UserChoice, Progid

	; Find the executable command associated with the above Registry key
	RegRead, BrowserFullCommand, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, %BrowserKeyName%\shell\open\command

	StringGetPos, pos, BrowserFullCommand, ",,1

	pos := --pos

	StringMid, BrowserPathandEXE, BrowserFullCommand, 2, %pos%
	Return BrowserPathandEXE
}
#b::RunOrRaise(DefaultBrowser())

The Window ID of an application can be discovered by the Window Spy included in the Autohotkey installation.

Window Operation Shortcuts

Other shortcuts to manipulate windows, such as Windows+M to toggle whether a window is maximized can be added:

#m::toggleMaxWindow()
; http://xahlee.info/mswin/autohotkey_toggle_maximize_window.html
toggleMaxWindow() {
  WinGet, WinState, MinMax, A
  if (WinState = 1) {
    WinRestore, A
  }
  else {
    WinMaximize, A
  }
}

Screen Switching

Download the Autohotkey script MoveMouseToMonitorV6.ahk to focus screen 1, 2, … (that is, to move your mouse pointer to it) by pressing Alt+1, Alt+2, …

Autohotkey

Autohotkey is a programming language on Microsoft Windows; the casual user mostly uses it to bind global shortcuts to set commands, similar to xbindkeys, but much more is possible. One such shortcut could be googling for the selected text, say by hitting Windows+S and launching an ahk file containing the following code snippet:

#s::SearchInternet()

SearchInternet() {
	Send, ^c
	Sleep 50
	tcb:=TrimString(clipboard)
	Run, http://www.google.com/search?q=%tcb%
	Return
}

TrimString(s) {
	; Remove all blank lines
	Loop {
		StringReplace, s, s, `r`n`r`n, `r`n, UseErrorLevel
		if ErrorLevel = 0  ; No more replacements needed.
			break
	}
	; Remove quotes and commas
	StringReplace, s, s, ", , All 			;"
	StringReplace, s, s, `,, , All
	; Replace all CR+LF's and &'s by Spaces
	StringReplace, s, s, `r`n, %A_SPACE%, All
	StringReplace, s, s, &, %A_SPACE%, All

	Return s
}

Mapping Capslock to Control and Escape

Mapping Capslock to the Control and Escape key at once, the former when it is kept pressed, the latter when it is quickly released, (as achieved by say xcape on Linux) is possible by Autohotkey; however, more robust is dual-key-remap. Create an elevated shortcut to make it work when running an application under admin privileges as well.

Keyboard instead of Mouse

Run control access.cpl to enable pointer movement by the numpad or download keynavish to quickly (by bisecting the screen space) move the mouse pointer anywhere on the screen.

File Manager

One classic mighty file manager is TotalCommander (there are others) which can be made portable. It has many useful plug-ins, such as

Listers (= file viewers) …

such as …

CudaLister to view source code files and
uLister to view any imaginable file type,
slister to view PDFs

Text Search plug-ins …

… such as TextSearch

File Readers plug-ins …

… such as

ADB to control your Android phone
Registry to edit the Registry
Uninstaller to uninstall applications,
Environment Variable to read and edit environment variables …

and more plug-ins to connect to SFTP, WEBDAV and cloud accounts by the author of Total Commander himself.

Default Editor

To use your favorite editor as a default editor, say Gvim run NotepadReplacer once. Use Text Editor Anywhere to paste the currently edited text (say in a entry box of the Browser) into your favorite editor.

Vim

To use the same vimrc on Microsoft Windows and Linux, create a junction vimfiles in %USERPROFILE% to dotfiles\vim by entering in the cmd prompt the line

   mklink /J vimfiles dotfiles\vim

where dotfiles\vim contains a file vimrc with the lines

let s:vimfiles_dir = split(&runtimepath, ',')[0]
if isdirectory(s:vimfiles_dir)
  let g:vimfiles_dir = s:vimfiles_dir
elseif has('unix')
  let g:vimfiles_dir = expand('$HOME') . '/.vim'
else " if has('win32')
  " see :help vimfiles
  let g:vimfiles_dir = expand('$HOME') . '\vimfiles'
endif
unlet s:vimfiles_dir

" Use '.vim' instead of 'vimfiles' on Windows, too, to ease syncing across OSs
if has('win32')
  set runtimepath+=$HOME/.vim,$HOME/.vim/after
endif

Plug-ins

Install vim-office to read Microsoft Office files in Vim. Make Gvim go full-screen on hitting F11 by installing gvimfullscreen_win32 (say by vim-plug) and adding the following lines to your vimrc:

let g:gvimfullscreen_dll = g:vimfiles_dir .
        \ '\plugged\gvimfullscreen_win32\gvimfullscreen' .
        \ (has('win64') ? '_64' : '') . '.dll'
nnoremap <silent> <F11> :<c-u>call libcallnr(g:gvimfullscreen_dll, 'ToggleFullScreen', 0)<bar>redraw<CR>

Best served with goyo.

Clipboard History

Install Ditto to build and search through your clipboard history.

To make it work in GVim and in the Windows Terminal as well add custom keystrokes in HKCU\Software\Ditto\PasteStrings respectively in the file Ditto.Settings in the portable version (installed by Scoop)

    [PasteStrings]
    gvim.exe={Esc}{DELAY 200}"{Plus}gP
    WindowsTerminal.exe=^+V 

To exclude clips pasted from password apps, say pass-winmenu, add:

RegexFilter_0=.*
RegexFilterByProcessName_0=pass-winmenu.exe

Screen Capture

Simultaneously hit Windows+Shift+S to start the Snipping Tool for capturing part of the screen; Have a look at ksnip for annotating the screenshot.

Conclusion

Now, after all this configuring, using Microsoft Windows resembles using Linux, though the former reacts noticeably slower than the original setup on Linux, despite modern hardware.

Hopefully this helped! It was a long journey just to come back close to start.

How to make yourself feel at HOME as a Linux user stranded on an administrated Microsoft Windows machine

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