Kulverstukas method to make windows less shit. (terminal)

[d4rkcat]

OK so I hate windows.
So i haven't really tried to use it for anything but gaming and testing my viruses on.
Kulverstukas recently pointed out to me that windows cmd can actually be slightly less shit by installing clink.
So I ran with it and tried to improve on it a bit:

1. Install Clink
Website
exe installer

Clink is so awesome you can type paths normally (with / as a seperator) and everything will just work.
The TAB completion is wonderful too.
It also persists command history across sessions and even has (reverse-i search) !!!!!!!
You have to disable console2's Ctrl+R hotkey to use it though. (at the end)

2. Install Cygwin
Website
exe installer

When you install cygwin you can select what packages you want to install.
If you select all it will download and install more than 10GB of stuff, so you probably want to only select the stuff you need.
For anyone interested here is my setup.ini
https://gist.github.com/d4rkcat/249229f0f6a533038f54

With this setup my cygwin directory is 795 MB

3. Install Console2
Website
exe installer

Once you have installed it launch it and right click on it, you can go to edit>Settings and modify it to your liking.

4. Add everything to PATH.
Press Windows Key+Pause
Then Advanced System Settings
Then Environment Variables
So if you installed things with default paths you would need to add:

Code: [Select]

;C:\Console2;C:\cygwin64\bin
to PATH variable.

5. Install AutoHotKey
Website
exe installer

6. Set up AutoHotKey to make the terminal appear and disappear with a hotkey
When you start AutoHotKey it will ask you to edit the script.
Put this in there (with any modifications you prefer, this launches and hides the terminal with `)
https://gist.github.com/d4rkcat/8ec3eb5f37ae271d953b

7. That's it. Welcome to a less shit cmd.
You can

Code: [Select]

ls
pwd
cat file.exe | sha256sum
echo 'This*is*a*string*baby' | cut -d '*' -f 4 | base64 > some.txt
cat some.txt | base64 -d | grep str

Or if you prefer you can access the bash shell directly by typing:

Code: [Select]

bash

Enjoy!

[Kulverstukas]

You can spray all the perfume you want on shit, but at the end of the day i'm sorry to say, it's still shit.

[z3ro]

Not bad.
But i'm gonna stick with linux 

[Spectrum_963]

Cmd makes me cry. I can't stand it anymore.
+1 though.

[flowjob]

For those that don't want to install bulky Cygwin, there're still the GnuWin32 CoreUtils.
MSYS also provides a bash shell for Windows, as well as the most common utils.

Or if you want it in a single executable (like for USBs, ...) there's a busybox port for Windows. It isn't complete tho, as certain utils are harder to port to the windows architecture!

[zenith]

+1 all over the place. My gaming rig is getting this treatment tonight.

[Kulverstukas]

Thanks for the writeup, OP, but you are forgetting Powershell

[d4rkcat]

Thanks for the writeup, OP, but you are forgetting Powershell

Powershell is still there, as it always is on windows7.
Unfortunately, you don't get the benefits of clink when using it so I didn't really think people would be interested.
You can still use it all the same 

[techb]

For those that don't want to install bulky Cygwin, there're still the GnuWin32 CoreUtils.
MSYS also provides a bash shell for Windows, as well as the most common utils.

Or if you want it in a single executable (like for USBs, ...) there's a busybox port for Windows. It isn't complete tho, as certain utils are harder to port to the windows architecture!

busybox ftw. I don't know what I would do without it on my phone.

[jpHernandez]

indeed linux beat windows in any angle, but there are tools ported from linux to windows, that is why, it is not that bad, as long as the tool is working on windows, it is still not that useless. 
but still I love linux...