I hope this is the right forum for this topic...it didn't really seem to fit in any of the others.

Basic Question:
Is there an easy way to run simple bash scripts calling only a few commands on Windows without installing a full emulator?

Details:
I have a bash script that is designed to help a friend with a Windows computer issue. It is one line long, and only calls a few linux commands. (So I don't need to be able to call awk, grep, ls, rm, etc.) Since I don't have physical access to the computer, it would be too complicated to boot into a live cd, or install something like cygwin--I'm looking for something simple for the end user. (Something that I can load up into a folder and have a single "Click here" batch file that does everything.) I've tried UnixUtils, but that didn't work with my script. All the script does is call the find command and format the output through sed and a few other commands. I just assumed that it would be easy to port over to Windows, but none of the Windows emulators will execute the script, which works fine on OS X.

I'm looking for a standalone bash environment that will run my script and point the appropriate commands to the right executables. All of the programs have been ported to windows.

I'd greatly appreciate any help with this problem.

http://www.cygwin.com/

Don't need to do a full install

How can you do a partial install? Did I miss something in the documentation? Also, even when I do a full install, it doesn't work. None of the commands work when I launch the shell--not even ls.

R.E.P.

For further readers of the post who have the same question:
Don't be ridiculous, make a script for Windows cmd (*.bat) file.

That would require that cygwin be installed on the friend's computer, or the commands would return an error. You can't call grep from the windows command line. You can create all the *.bat files you want, but the programs they call need to be accessible. That was my problem - windows doesn't have a good set of command line tools available.

What I ended up doing was extracting the programs that I needed from cygwin and GNU and the libraries those programs required. Everything was put into a zip file. My friend extracted the zip file into a folder, and ran the *.bat file.

It was not an elegant solution, but it worked.

I think what he is suggesting is forget bash and use the native mswindows type batch files. I am not sure whether kde4 for windows will let you use bash also. Something to consider.

Have you at least tried to do a google search?
For example I have found this:
win-bash

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <GENERAL> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.



And that said: Dear OP, I think you're suffering a bit of a misconception.
bash is a glue, a way of "binding programs together". Installing anything
bash-like won't cut the cheese. And short of installing cygwin including
all the programs your bash-script uses (not that I know what you're actually
making use of) it's not going to fly.



Cheers,
Tink

I like to bash windows all the time.
(Just couldn't resist :P)

Hmm, so you don't need Bash for anything else then fixing a computer once? I thought windows xp and beyond included a remote desktop thingy. Perhaps if you guided him to activate it, you could do what the script does manually?

GnuWin32 provide stuff that can be used with Windows command line (cmd.exe), so presumably, in .BAT files too.

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html

how about MSYS?

Yeah get MSYS. I used to run MinGW and MSYS on Windows XP and it pretty much acted like a bash shell.
http://www.mingw.org/

Oh yeah I actually made a tutorial. Maybe it is terrible, I don't know. I mostly just make the tutorials for when I forget how to do stuff months later and I don't want to relearn it.
http://www.icecubeflower.com/mingw.html

...wait this thread is two years old. Who am I even talking to?