Windows Dev Setup

A developer guide for people coming from macOS and Linux

Coding related

• VS Code - code editor

• Cascadia Code - font

• Terminal

  • Microsoft Terminal - not as customizable yet but leaner on memory
  • Fluent Terminal - better in features than Microsoft's currently but consumes slightly more memory (using this for now)

• Setup WSL and update to WSL2 - Windows Subsystem for Linux is not a VM or dual boot, it's a native POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface Interface) that mounts directly to Windows' file system.

  • VSCode once opened (from GUI or via code command) will prompt to install the WSL extension

  • Note: keep your code in native linux filesystem (i.e. inside /home/<user> directory) because WSL2 has some known issues with cross OS filesystem performance

  • Troubleshooting: quite rarely connection to WSL: Ubuntu drops from VSCode, the solution is to restart WSL. From powershell run wsl --shutdown and restart VSCode

• Setup git

  git config --global user.name "First Last"
  git config --global user.email email@email.com

• Add GPG and SSH keys (still exploring how to integrate the passphrases with keychain so you don't have to type them on each login)

• Install build-essential

CLI

• Install Zsh
• Install Oh my ZSH
• Install GitHub CLI tool

CLI plugins

• ZSH autosuggestions
• bgnotify
• ZSH syntax highlighting
• z
• fzf
• fkill-cli
• fx
• bat
• diff-so-fancy
• ag
• sudo
• yt-dlp - youtube-dl improved

Tools

• Quick Look - quick look for windows, just press Space, has some plugins
• Ditto - clipboard manager
• Twinkle Tray - brightness control for external monitors
• Power Toys - utilities such as color picker, window management, image resizer, preview pane, run (Alfred / Albert alternative)
• Iriun - use your phone as camera
• WOMic - use your phone as microphone
• DroidCam - features both camera and microphone functionality
• Croc - CLI file transfer
• Unison - easily transfer media to / from iPhone

Tips

• Emoji picker: use Super + .
• App switcher: use Super + Number key
• It's possible to copy some output into Windows' clipboard by piping output to clip.exe for example echo 'GG' | clip.exe, not sure if there's a way to paste yet

Apps

• Typora - markdown editor
• MarkText - open source markdown editor
• Notion - notes and wiki + addon
• Firefox - web browser
• Brave - alt web browser
• Steam - games
• Discord - chats
• Telegram - chats
• Spotify - music
• Studio One - DAW
• Davinci Resolve - video editing
• Insomnia - REST client
• Beekeeper Studio - DB GUI
• RunJS - JS run environment
• MusicXMatch - lyrics
• Figma - design
• Boss Tone Studio - guitar processor software
• Tunnel Bear - VPN
• Remembear - password manager
• Zoom - video meetings
• VLC - media player
• Pym - image compression
• Authy - 2FA client
• Flip clock - screensaver
• Lively - use anything as wallpaper
• Files - better file explorer

Related

• Linux dev setup
• Mac dev setup
• Dotfiles

Icon from icons8