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Opinionated setups for Windows dev boxes. Idempotent. CI-tested.

Go from a fresh Windows install to a fully configured dev box in one command. These declarative, CI-tested configs set up your tools, settings, and shells the same way every time — so any machine can be your machine in minutes.

Three developer setups live in this repo. Pick the one that matches what you want:

Most of them use winget configure. If you've never used it before, enable it once:

winget configure --enable

# x64:
winget install Microsoft.VCRedist.2015+.x64
# ARM64:
winget install Microsoft.VCRedist.2015+.arm64

If that fails or winget configure is still not recognized, see Troubleshooting.

Turns a fresh Windows 11 box into a clean, distraction-free dev workstation in one shot.

A single winget configuration file that installs dev tools, applies opinionated Windows settings, and bootstraps WSL + Ubuntu through the required reboot. Non-interactive. Idempotent. Safe to re-run on an existing machine.

First, get the files onto the box. The config is invoked from a local path, but the bootstrap itself is what installs Git — so on a clean Windows install you'll typically download the repo as a ZIP. If Git is already there, clone it:

# Git already installed:
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/WindowsDeveloperConfig.git
cd WindowsDeveloperConfig
# Otherwise, download and extract the ZIP:
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://github.com/microsoft/WindowsDeveloperConfig/archive/refs/heads/main.zip -OutFile WindowsDeveloperConfig.zip
Expand-Archive .\WindowsDeveloperConfig.zip -DestinationPath .
cd .\WindowsDeveloperConfig-main

Then apply the configuration:

winget configure -f .\windows-dev-config\dev-config.winget --accept-configuration-agreements --disable-interactivity

⚠️ May reboot. Enabling WSL needs a Windows optional feature that requires a restart. A RunOnce task picks the configuration back up after you sign in, installs Ubuntu, and finishes the run. Expect one hard reboot plus about a minute of post-login work. Save your work first.

Full details: windows-dev-config/README.md.

Also known as Comfort Shell. An interactive setup for a polished Windows + WSL shell environment.

WSL Comfort stands apart. It supports both interactive and non-interactive modes, and lets you pick and choose individual components. The Windows side handles WSL, the distro, the Cascadia Code Nerd Font, and a themed Windows Terminal profile. The Linux side runs inside the distro and configures the shell itself.

.\wsl-comfort\install.ps1

Interactive by default. Use -NonInteractive for unattended runs; the bootstrap also takes --minimal for a smaller setup. The Linux half is standalone, so you can copy comfort-shell-bootstrap.sh onto any Ubuntu host and run it directly.

Full details: wsl-comfort/readme.md.

Just want one toolchain? Pick a row. Each workload ships a configuration.winget file plus a matching install.ps1 shim that applies it and refreshes PATH in the current session.

Want the PATH refresh in your current shell? Use the matching shim instead of calling winget configure directly:

.\Workloads\python\install.ps1

Heads up: WinForms and WinUI 3 pull down several gigabytes of Visual Studio components. Fine on a real workstation, painful on a small VM.

A PowerToys Command Palette extension lives under src/future/cmdpal/. It reads the same flow list as the rest of the repo and surfaces every flow as a launchable entry, so you don't have to remember which configuration.winget to point winget at.

See src/future/cmdpal/README.md for build and install instructions.

# x64:
winget install Microsoft.VCRedist.2015+.x64
# ARM64:
winget install Microsoft.VCRedist.2015+.arm64

Hit a bug, a stale doc, or a setup that fails on your machine? Open an issue at github.com/microsoft/WindowsDeveloperConfig/issues. Include your Windows build (winver), the exact command you ran, and the failing output. This helps us triage faster.

Contributions of all kinds are welcome: bug reports, doc fixes, new workloads, voice-and-tone tweaks. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md, then read src/docs/development.md for the CI matrix, the "how to add a language" walkthrough, and how the sign pipeline works.

Note on the repo layout: the src/ tree is the source of truth. The top-level windows-dev-config/, Workloads/, and wsl-comfort/ folders are Authenticode-signed release copies regenerated by the sign pipeline, so please don't edit them directly. Full details in src/docs/development.md.

The single source of truth for every flow (paths, build/run commands, ids, language metadata) is src/manifest.yml. The Command Palette extension, the CI harness, and the per-flow shims all read from it, so keep it in sync when you add or rename a flow.