JayHarris's dotfiles for Windows

A collection of PowerShell files for Windows, including common application installation through Chocolatey and npm, and developer-minded Windows configuration defaults.

Are you a Mac user? Check out my dotfiles repository.

Installation

Using Git and the bootstrap script

You can clone the repository wherever you want. (I like to keep it in ~\Projects\dotfiles-windows.) The bootstrapper script will copy the files to your PowerShell Profile folder.

From PowerShell:

git clone https://github.com/jayharris/dotfiles-windows.git; cd dotfiles-windows; . .\bootstrap.ps1

To update your settings, cd into your local dotfiles-windows repository within PowerShell and then:

. .\bootstrap.ps1

Note: You must have your execution policy set to unrestricted (or at least in bypass) for this to work: Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted.

Git-free install

To install these dotfiles from PowerShell without Git:

iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://raw.github.com/jayharris/dotfiles-windows/master/setup/install.ps1'))

To update later on, just run that command again.

Note: You must have your execution policy set to unrestricted (or at least in bypass) for this to work: Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted.

Add custom commands without creating a new fork

If .\extra.ps1 exists, it will be sourced along with the other files. You can use this to add a few custom commands without the need to fork this entire repository, or to add commands you don't want to commit to a public repository.

My .\extra.ps1 looks something like this:

# Hg credentials
# Not in the repository, to prevent people from accidentally committing under my name
Set-Environment "EMAIL" "Jay Harris <jay@aranasoft.com>"

# Git credentials
# Not in the repository, to prevent people from accidentally committing under my name
Set-Environment "GIT_AUTHOR_NAME" "Jay Harris","User"
Set-Environment "GIT_COMMITTER_NAME" $env:GIT_AUTHOR_NAME
git config --global user.name $env:GIT_AUTHOR_NAME
Set-Environment "GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL" "jay@aranasoft.com"
Set-Environment "GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL" $env:GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL
git config --global user.email $env:GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL

Extras is designed to augment the existing settings and configuration. You could also use ./extra.ps1 to override settings, functions and aliases from my dotfiles repository, but it is probably better to fork this repository.

Sensible Windows defaults

When setting up a new Windows PC, you may want to set some Windows defaults and features, such as showing hidden files in Windows Explorer and installing IIS. This will also set your machine name and full user name, so you may want to modify this file before executing.

.\windows.ps1

Install Chocolatey packages

When setting up a new Windows box, you may want to install some common Chocolatey packages (it will also install chocolatey, if it isn't already).

.\chocolatey.ps1

Install Node packages

In addition to the applications provided by Chocolatey, you may also like some common applications that are provided by Node via NPM. (Node is required, and can be installed via Chocolatey.)

.\npm.ps1

Install Visual Studio Extensions

You can also install Visual Studio Extensions from the Gallery into your most recent version of Visual Studio.

.\visualstudio.ps1

Or, to install Visual Studio plugins at any time:

Install-VSExtension $url

The Url can be found on the gallery. It's the extensions Download link url.

Forking your own version

This repository is built around how I use Windows, which is predominantly in a VM hosted on OSX. As such, things like VNC or Ruby or FileZilla or Skype are not installed, as they are available to me on the OSX side, installed by my OSX dotfiles. If you are using Windows as your primary OS, you may want a different configuration that reflects that, and I recommend you fork this repository.

If you do fork for your own custom configuration, you will need to touch a few files to reference your own repository, instead of mine.

Within /setup/install.ps1, modify the Repository variables.

$account = "jayharris"
$repo    = "dotfiles-windows"
$branch  = "master"

Also, be sure to reference your own repository in the git-free installation command.

iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://raw.github.com/$account/$repo/$branch/setup/install.ps1'))

Feedback

Suggestions/improvements are welcome and encouraged!

Author

Jay Harris

Thanks to…

• @Mathias Bynens for his OSX dotfiles, which this repository is modeled after.