computer-setup

Windows 10 workstation setup

Drivers

• Intel
  • Intel Driver and Support Assistant
• Lenovo
  • Lenovo Service Bridge
  • Lenovo System Update
  • Lenovo Vantage
• NETGEAR
  • NETGEAR Switch Discovery Tool (NSDT)
• NVIDIA
  • NVIDIA Control Panel
  • NVIDIA RTX Desktop Manager

Windows features

• Containers
• Hyper-V
  • Enable from a PowerShell terminal:

  Get-WindowsFeature -Name Hyper-V
  Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All
  

• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
  • Review and configure WSL from the command line

  REM displays installed linux systems
  wsl -l -v
  
  REM sets default to version 2
  wsl --set-default-version 2
    
  REM updates the system (can fix start errors)
  wsl.exe --update
  

  • Configure the access to WSL from Windows

  REM adds a firewall rule to enable inbound from WSL
  New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "WSL" -Direction Inbound -InterfaceAlias "vEthernet (WSL)" -Action Allow
  

  • Look at the available options to configure

  strings "/mnt/c/Program Files/WSL/wslservice.exe" | egrep "^wsl2\.|^experimental\."
  

  • Configure WSL in C:\Users\<username>\.wslconfig (create the file and restart WSL afterwards)

  [wsl2]
  memory=12GB
  swap=0GB
  debugConsole=false
  localhostforwarding=true
  # nestedVirtualization=true doesn't work
  nestedVirtualization=false
  vmIdleTimeout=60000
  safeMode=false
  # options: NAT (default), mirrored, bridged
  networkingMode=NAT
  # networkingMode=bridged
  # vmSwitch="Internet"
    
  [experimental]
  # default: true
  autoMemoryReclaim=dropcache
  # default: false
  sparseVhd=true
  # ignoredPorts=
  # default: false
  hostAddressLoopback=true
  

  • Configure Visual Studio Code (see StackOverflow)

  # assuming Visual Studio Code has been installed on Windows 10 in "C:\Programs\Microsoft VS Code"
  echo 'export PATH=$PATH:"/mnt/c/Programs/Microsoft VS Code/bin/"' >> ~/.bashrc
  exec "$SHELL"
  code .
  

Windows optional features

• AV1 Video Extension
• HEIC Image Viewer, Converter
• HEIF Image Extensions
• HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer
• OpenSSH
• Raw Image Extension
• Web Media Extensions
• Web Image Extensions
• Windows Package Manager Source (winget) V2

Windows configuration

Multiple GPU

• Windows Settings > System > Display > Graphics settings > Graphics performance preference
  • Select an application and explicitely set it to run on High performance
• Powershell
  • Open <Path_to_Documents>\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 in Visual Studio Code

  code $PROFILE
  

Windows store

• Microsoft Photos
• Microsoft Clipchamp
• Raw Image Extension
  • Can be downloaded from apps.microsoft.com
• Ubuntu on Windows
  • Once installed, look at Ubuntu setup
  • Open a shell in Ubuntu and create or update /etc/wsl.conf file to enable chmod (required for SSH) and avoid issues with npm commands (see Advanced settings configuration in WSL)

  # /etc/wsl.conf
  [automount]
  options = "metadata"
  
  [interop]
  appendWindowsPath = false
  

  • Restart WSL from Windows

  wsl --shutdown
  

  • Copy SSH key (must be generated before in Windows with Git Bash for example) and review permissions (see Sharing SSH keys between Windows and WSL 2)

  cp -r /mnt/c/Users/<myusername>/.ssh/id_rsa* ~/.ssh/
  chmod 700 ~/.ssh/
  chmod 644 ~/.ssh/*.pub
  chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
  chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
  

• Windows Terminal
  • Download the msixbundle file from the latest release
  • Execute in PowerShell Add-AppxPackage .\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_Win10_xxx.msixbundle
• Winget (docs)
  • Download the msixbundle file and licence from the latest release
  • Execute in PowerShell Add-AppxProvisionedPackage -online -PackagePath .\Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_xxx.msixbundle -LicensePath .\xxx_License1.xml
  • Double check it works with winget list
  • If needed, you can look at the package with Get-AppxPackage microsoft.desktopappinstaller and uninstall it with Remove-AppxPackage -Package Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_xxx

Applications

Inventory

• 7-Zip
  • Unzip all files from a folder: "C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" e *.zip
• Acrobat Reader
• Azure CLI
• Balena Etcher (cross-platform)
  • Alternative to create a bootable USD drive: Rufus (more functionalities)
    • Create a bootable USB stick with Rufus on Windows
• CPU-Z
• Docker Desktop
  • Fix permission error (see Issue #1156)

  sudo groupadd docker
  sudo adduser $USER docker
  sudo chown root:docker /var/run/docker.sock
  sudo chmod g+w /var/run/docker.sock
  newgrp docker
  

  • Alternative: Rancher Desktop (docs, GitHub)
• Docker Engine
  • Install from a Powershell terminal (Prepare Windows for containers):

  Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/Windows-Containers/Main/helpful_tools/Install-DockerCE/install-docker-ce.ps1" -o install-docker-ce.ps1
  .\install-docker-ce.ps1
  

  • Review Docker configuration: C:\ProgramData\docker\config\daemon.json

  • Start Docker

  "C:\Programs\docker-20.10.19\docker\dockerd.exe" -H npipe:////./pipe/docker_windows
  

  • Create Docker context from the original terminal

  docker context create win --docker host=npipe:////./pipe/docker_windows
  

  • Use Docker context from another terminal as an Administrator

  docker -c win ps
  

• Draw Desktop
• FileZilla
• Git for Windows
  • SSH key creation in Git Bash (see Adding a new SSH key to your GitHub account)

    # ED25519
  ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "firstname.lastname@email.com"
  
  # RSA
  ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "firstname.lastname@email.com"
  

  • Configure git (can be viewed & edited in %userprofile%\.gitconfig)

  # git config --global --edit
  git config --global core.longpaths true
  git config --global core.autocrlf false
  

• GitKraken
• Go
• Google Chrome
  • Extensions: Dark Reader
  • Enable experimental features (like dark mode) chrome://flags
• Greenshot
• Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
• JetBrains Toolbox App (JetBrains Licenses)
  • GoLand
• KeePass
  • Plugins: KeePassHttp
  • Google extensions: KeePassHttp-Connector
• Make (2 options)
  • MinGW
  • GnuWin
• MariaDB Community Server (to get the GUI client)
• Microsoft Office
  • Outlook
    • Change the temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius
    • Add timezone
• minikube
• Mockoon
• MongoDB Atlas CLI
• MongoDB Compass
• Mozilla Firefox
• MySQL Workbench
• Node.js & NPM
  • Edit files in nodejs folder to replace “-g” by “–location=global” (see stackoverflow question #72401421)
  • Update packages

  # update packages
  npm update -g
    
  ## update NPM
  npm install npm@latest -g
  

• NordVPN
• Notepad++
• OpenVPN
• PDF24 Creator
• PeaZip
• pgAdmin
• Podman
  • Download latest stable from GitHub releases page
  • Initalize a machine with podman machine init and start it with podman machine start
• Postman
• Process Explorer
• Puppet Agent
• Puppet Development Kit

• Ruby

  # looks for the available versions
  winget search RubyInstallerTeam.Ruby
  
  # installs a specific version and restarts the terminal
  winget install RubyInstallerTeam.Ruby.3.2
  
  # makes sure ruby is available from the terminal
  ruby -v
  gem -v
  

• Slack
• Vagrant
  • Set VAGRANT_DEFAULT_PROVIDER environment variable to virtualbox or hyperv and restart Windows
  • Look at the cheat sheet
• VLC
• VirtualBox
• Visual Studio Code

  • Extensions:

    Angular Language Service, CMake Language Support, CSS Formatter, Debbuger for Firefox, Dev Containers, Docker, EditorConfig for VS Code, ESLint, Excalidraw, Go, HashiCorp Terraform, Kubernetes, Makefile Tools, Markdown Table Pretifier, markdownlint, MongoDB for VS Code, PHP Intelephense, Playwright Test for VSCode, Puppet, Python, Puppet Debugger, Snippets and Syntax Highlight for Gherkin (Cucumber), Tailwind CSS IntelliSense, Vue - Official, WSL, YAML

  • User > setttings.json (C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\settings.json):

  {
    "editor.minimap.enabled": false,
    "security.workspace.trust.untrustedFiles": "open",
    "redhat.telemetry.enabled": false,
    "[markdown]": {
      "editor.defaultFormatter": "DavidAnson.vscode-markdownlint"
    },
    "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows": "Ubuntu (WSL)",
    "[python]": {
      "editor.formatOnType": true
    },
    "playwright.reuseBrowser": true,
    "vs-kubernetes": {
      "vs-kubernetes.crd-code-completion": "disabled"
    },
    "workbench.colorTheme": "Visual Studio Dark",
    "typescript.updateImportsOnFileMove.enabled": "always",
    "git.openRepositoryInParentFolders": "never",
    "puppet.installDirectory": "C:\\Programs\\PuppetDevelopmentKit",
    "puppet.installType": "pdk",
    "go.toolsManagement.autoUpdate": true,
    "workbench.editorAssociations": {
      "*.md": "default"
    },
  }
  

  • Workspace > settings.json:

  {
    "folders": [
      ...
    ],
    "settings": {
      ...
      "vs-kubernetes": {
        "disable-linters": ["resource-limits"],
        ...
      }
    }
  }
  

• Visual Studio 2022
  • Self-generated certificate for .NET (ref. stackoverflow.com/questions/56409580)
    • Execute “certlm.msc” to open the certificate manager
    • Go to Personal/Certificates and locate localhost certificate
    • Move the certificate to “Trusted Root Certification Authorities/Certificates”
• VLC
• wget
  • solution found on GitHub
  • as indicated in the faq go to eternallybored.org/misc/wget and download the latest x64 version
  • extract the exe file and copy it in your local cmder installation bin directory
• WinDirStat
• WinMerge

• yq

  winget install --id MikeFarah.yq
  

• zoomit

Binaries in PATH

• Docker CLI
  • Create an environment variable to access Docker engine running on WSL

  Key	Value
  DOCKER_HOST	tcp://localhost:2375

  • Make a check (the output doesn’t display during the run, strange…)

  docker run --name helloworld hello-world
  docker logs helloworld
  docker rm helloworld
  

• Helm
• Kubectl
• kubeseal
• mongosh
• PsExec
  • Run as a service account: psexec -i -s cmd.exe
• Terraform

Chocolatey packages

• Install applications with Chocolatey (package manager for Windows)

# installs Chocolatey
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

# installs Firefox
choco install -y firefox

# installs Windows Terminal
choco install -y microsoft-windows-terminal

# VSCode + Extensions (an example provided here)
choco install -y vscode --params "/NoDesktopIcon"
code --install-extension ms-vscode.powershell

# installs git client
choco install -y git.install --params "/GitOnlyOnPath /NoAutoCrlf /NoShellIntegration"

# installs .NET Framework 4.8 developer pack
choco install -y netfx-4.8-devpack

# installs latest .NET SDK (6.0 in October 2022)
choco install -y dotnet-sdk

# installs Visual Studio 2022 Build tools & NuGet
choco install -y visualstudio2022buildtools nuget.commandline

# installs Notepad++
choco install -y notepadplusplus

Utilities

Hard Drive Backup

• Unstoppable Copier

Oldies

• ACDSee
• CCleaner
• ColorPic
• DaemonTools
• Everest Ultimate
• Gadwin PrintScreen
• HDGraph
• K-Lite Codec Pack
• Magic Draw
• Partition Magic
• PDF Creator
• Picasa
• QuickTime
• TestDisk
• Toad
• UltraEdit
• Unstoppable Copier
• VirtualDub
• Winace
• Winamp
• XML Spy

Configuration

• Control Panel / User Accounts /Credential Manager

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