This repository contains information regarding my Windows setup and some scripts and utils I use.
A short list of tools I use:
- Windows Terminal
- Starship (shell prompt)
- Visual Studio Code
- PowerShell Core
- WSL2
- ShutUp10 - "Free antispy tool for Windows 10". Use with default settings, you don't want to mess with Windows internals.
- Patch My PC Home Updater - Simplify third-party patching on your home PC
- Sysinternals
- PowerToys - a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows 10 experience for greater productivity.
- FancyZones - a window manager that makes it easy to create complex window layouts and quickly position windows into those layouts.
- WinGet - Windows Package Manager. I use it to install most of the desktop apps.
- Scoop - sometimes needed for developer tooling that's not available via winget.
- NirSoft - Freeware utilities: password recovery, system utilities, desktop utilities
I use Set-DevMachineConfiguration to quickly setup new workstation. Not that I do that frequently, but it's handy.
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -scope CurrentUserUpdate-DevEnvironment.ps1 updates installed programs via PatchMyPC and winget. Additionally, it also checks for available security and critical Windows updates with PSWindowsUpdate PowerShell module.
Use InstallAutoStart.ps1 to add AutoHotkey scripts to autostart for the current user.
This one is used to... change display resolution! Handy for gaming when wide screen might not be supported, or does not make much sense for certain titles.
Some applications may require symlinks which require special privileges. These privileges can be assigned to the user by enabling Developer Mode, or updating the Local Security Policy.
Open Local Security Policy (secpol.msc) and go to Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment, select Create symbolic links, add your user to the list and reboot.
More detail about junctions on superuser.com.
While MAX_PATH limitations have been removed in Windows 10, version 1607, the behavior remains opt-in.
More information can be found in Microsoft docs.
To enable long paths from PowerShell creating a registry key (run as admin):
New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem" `
-Name "LongPathsEnabled" -Value 1 -PropertyType DWORD -ForceFix apps that appear blurry in Windows 10
Make older apps or programs compatible with Windows 10
There are cases when applications takes control over sound adapter adjusting volume level automatically messing with our settings. Also, it means that only one application at a time can use your audio interface.
To prevent such behavior open Control Panel and go to Sound section, select your device and from Advanced tab uncheck Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device checkbox.
By default, VHD virtual hard drive used for storage by WSL distributions won't release unused space.
You may run wsl --export and wsl --import or use tools like wslcompact to automate that process.
If you feel adventurous, you may use feature available in pre-release version of WSL - sparsevhd.
To install pre-release version:
wsl --update; wsl --update --pre-releaseSample ~/.wslconfig:
# Settings apply across all Linux distros running on WSL 2
[wsl2]
# Disable page reporting so WSL retains all allocated memory claimed from Windows and releases none back when free
# pageReporting=false
# Turn off default connection to bind WSL 2 localhost to Windows localhost
# localhostforwarding=true
# Disables nested virtualization
# nestedVirtualization=false
# Turns on output console showing contents of dmesg when opening a WSL 2 distro for debugging
# debugConsole=true
# Enable experimental features
[experimental]
sparseVhd=true
# Automatically releases cached memory after detecting idle CPU usage.
# Set to gradual for slow release, and dropcache for instant release of cached memory.
autoMemoryReclaim=gradual