setting up a new Windows machine

smaller settings

Mute all default Windows sounds:

• Settings > Sound Control Panel (how you get there depends on the Windows version), and change the Sound Scheme to "No Sounds".

install third-party software

Some third-party software I usually install on my main work Windows laptop:

• Firefox Nightly
• Cygwin
• Facebook Messenger (the Windows-based app)
• LibreOffice
• Gimp
• Inkscape

remap keys using PowerToys

PowerToy's Keyboard Manager [PowerToys install]

• Swap caps lock ⇔ escape, to make Vim easier to use
• volume:
  • map + to Volume up (This is confusing because + means the numpad-add key. = is actually the key that's near the Backspace key that can be combined with the Shift key to generate a plus character.)
  • map - (Subtract) to Volume down
  • map * to Volume mute

TODO: Other keys I wish I could map are a "Toggle mute on the microphone" and "Enable/disable touchpad", both of which probably require something like AutoHotkey to implement.

TODO: Explore using SoundSwitch for providing a "toggle mute on the microphone" global hotkey.

Windows-based gvim ⇒ Cygwin

When I setup Cygwin, then typically I centralize my main Vim configuration under my Cygwin home directory, because I run both text-based Vim under Cygwin and GUI-based Gvim under Windows. In that situation, I want to forward Gvim's attempts to look under my Windows directories for the config, and instead look under the Cygwin directories.

To accomplish that, run   notepad %USERPROFILE%\.vimrc   and paste this in:

" When Windows-based gvim is run, tell it to load ALL Vim configuration from our Cygwin home dir
" instead.

let s:cygwin_home="c:\\cygwin64\\home\\newcum"
let &runtimepath = s:cygwin_home . "\\.vim\\," . &runtimepath
exec "source " . s:cygwin_home . "\\.vimrc"
        " ^^ NOTE that if you get the error "Can't open file", then check if ~/.vimrc is a symlink
        "    within Cygwin. If so, that won't be accessible from Windows. Either 1) make it a normal
        "    file using 'deedot's suggestions, or 2) recreate the symlink using another method, read
        "    here: https://carltonf.github.io/post/symbolic-links-on-windows#the-four-types