Rebuilding My Windows 10 Development Environment

Windows Development Environment Setup

Introduction

A recent system crash forced me to wipe years of accumulated clutter—an overstuffed 1TB SSD, conflicting software, and tangled environment variables. I rebuilt the machine from scratch by preparing a Ventoy USB stick and installing Windows 10 Pro 22H2. This article captures the resulting development environment so I can reproduce it quickly or share the recipe with teammates.

The guide covers:

Shell tooling with zsh/oh-my-zsh and PowerShell/oh-my-posh
Doom Emacs across WSL Debian, VirtualBox Debian, and MSYS2/MinGW64
A reproducible MicroPython build toolchain
Shared V2RayN proxy settings plus Debian and pip mirror configuration
Scoop and Pacman package manager tuning
Consistent Windows Terminal profiles

Hardware Baseline

HP ZHAN 66 Pro 14 G4 specifications

Model: HP ZHAN 66 Pro 14 G4 mobile workstation
CPU: 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7 @ 2.80 GHz
GPU: Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics (shared memory)
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 (dual channel)
Storage: 1TB Samsung 980 Pro NVMe SSD
OS: Windows 10 Pro 22H2, clean installation (November 2025)
Input devices: FLICO · Majestouch 2 (FILCKF16) + Logitech GPW3

All instructions below are validated on this configuration. Comparable 11th-gen Intel laptops should deliver nearly identical results.

Networking and Mirrors

Locate the host IP from WSL:
```
cat /etc/resolv.conf | grep nameserver
```
This typically reveals 192.168.x.x for VirtualBox bridged networking or 172.30.x.x for WSL.

Set proxy variables:

export http_proxy=socks://<windows-ip>:10808
export https_proxy=socks://<windows-ip>:10808
export all_proxy=socks://<windows-ip>:10808

Persist the variables: append the three lines above to ~/.zshrc (or ~/.bashrc) in both WSL Debian and VirtualBox Debian. VirtualBox should use a Bridged Adapter so the guest reaches the Windows host.

Configure apt: create /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/proxy.conf with

Acquire::http::Proxy "socks://<windows-ip>:10808";
Acquire::https::Proxy "socks://<windows-ip>:10808";

Debian mirror (Tsinghua University)

Update /etc/apt/sources.list in both Debian environments:

deb https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/debian/ bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/debian/ bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/debian/ bookworm-backports main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

Then refresh:

sudo apt update

Python pip mirror (Tsinghua University)

Create ~/.pip/pip.conf on Debian and %APPDATA%\pip\pip.ini on Windows:

[global]
index-url = https://pypi.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/simple
timeout = 6000

Shell Tooling

zsh + oh-my-zsh

Install and standardize zsh across WSL Debian and MSYS2 so aliases and prompts behave the same everywhere.

WSL or VirtualBox Debian:

sudo apt install zsh git curl -y
chsh -s $(which zsh)

Install oh-my-zsh:

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Configure ~/.zshrc (ideally checked into dotfiles):

plugins=(git z sudo extract zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting)
ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"
source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh

Clone Powerlevel10k once and let p10k configure tailor the prompt per environment:

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k

MSYS2 MinGW64:

pacman -S zsh git

Make zsh the default shell by editing C:\msys64\msys2_shell.cmd:

set "MSYS2_PATH_TYPE=inherit"
set "MSYSTEM=MINGW64"
set "SHELL=/usr/bin/zsh"

Symlink shared dotfiles from Windows storage (example):

ln -s /mnt/c/Users/<USERNAME>/dotfiles/.zshrc ~/.zshrc
ln -s /mnt/c/Users/<USERNAME>/dotfiles/.p10k.zsh ~/.p10k.zsh

PowerShell + oh-my-posh

Install PowerShell 7 and enhance it with oh-my-posh and PSReadLine:

winget install --id Microsoft.PowerShell
winget install JanDeDobbeleer.OhMyPosh
Install-Module -Name PSReadLine -Scope CurrentUser -Force

Bootstrap your $PROFILE (create it if missing):

if (!(Test-Path -Path $PROFILE)) { New-Item -ItemType File -Force -Path $PROFILE | Out-Null }
@'
Import-Module PSReadLine
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionSource HistoryAndPlugin
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionViewStyle ListView
oh-my-posh init pwsh --config "$env:POSH_THEMES_PATH\paradox.omp.json" | Invoke-Expression
'@ | Set-Content -Path $PROFILE -Encoding UTF8

Install JetBrainsMono Nerd Font (from https://www.nerdfonts.com/font-downloads) and set it in Windows Terminal so glyphs render correctly in both shells.

Doom Emacs Across Platforms

Shared installation steps

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs ~/.emacs.d
~/.emacs.d/bin/doom install

Symlink your Doom configuration repository:

git clone [email protected]:yourname/dotfiles.git ~/dotfiles
ln -s ~/dotfiles/doom ~/.doom.d

Example font configuration inside config.el:

(cond
 ((eq system-type 'windows-nt)
  (setq doom-font (font-spec :family "JetBrainsMono Nerd Font" :size 12)))
 ((eq system-type 'gnu/linux)
  (setq doom-font (font-spec :family "monospace" :size 14))))

WSL Debian

sudo apt install build-essential ripgrep fd-find imagemagick -y
fc-cache -fv
ln -s /mnt/c/Windows/Fonts/"JetBrainsMonoNLNerdFont-Regular.ttf" ~/.local/share/fonts/

VirtualBox Debian

Use Bridged Adapter networking for proxy access.
Install the same dependencies as WSL.
Copy Nerd Fonts into /usr/local/share/fonts (or mount a shared folder) and run sudo fc-cache -fv.

MSYS2 MinGW64 (inside Windows Terminal)

pacman -S --needed git mingw-w64-x86_64-emacs ripgrep fd tree-sitter

Apply these tweaks so Emacs behaves nicely under Windows Terminal:

Fonts: ensure doom-font uses “JetBrainsMono Nerd Font” and set the same face in the Windows Terminal profile.
Cursor shape: add (setq-default cursor-type 'bar) to keep the caret thin instead of a block.
Eshell aliases: populate ~/.emacs.d/eshell/alias with quick shortcuts:
```
ll ls -l
g git status
v nvim $1
e emacs $1
```

Highlighting and UI polish:

(setq doom-theme 'tango-dark)
(global-font-lock-mode 1)
(global-hl-line-mode 1)
(setq doom-themes-enable-bold t
      doom-themes-enable-italic t)
(add-hook 'eshell-first-time-mode-hook #'doom-themes-visual-bell-config)

MicroPython Build Toolchain

Prerequisites (WSL and VirtualBox Debian)

sudo apt install git build-essential ninja-build cmake python3 python3-pip python3-venv pkg-config -y
python3 -m pip install --user pyserial esptool
sudo apt install gcc-arm-none-eabi binutils-arm-none-eabi

Prerequisites (MSYS2 MinGW64)

pacman -S --needed git base-devel mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake mingw-w64-x86_64-python
pip install --upgrade pyserial esptool

Add MAKEFLAGS="-j$(nproc)" to ~/.zshrc for parallel builds on Windows.

Clone and build

git clone https://github.com/micropython/micropython.git ~/Dev/micropython
cd ~/Dev/micropython
make -C mpy-cross
make -C ports/stm32 BOARD=PYBD_SF2

For ESP32 targets:

make -C ports/esp32 submodules
make -C ports/esp32 BOARD=GENERIC_SPIRAM

Flashing helper

Create ~/bin/micropython-flash (remember to chmod +x):

#!/usr/bin/env bash
esptool.py --chip esp32 --port "$1" --baud 460800 write_flash -z 0x1000 build-GENERIC_SPIRAM/firmware.bin

Use udev rules on Linux or Device Manager on Windows to maintain consistent serial port naming.

Package Managers

Scoop (Windows)

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser
iwr -useb get.scoop.sh | iex
scoop install git curl wget neovim

Point Scoop at the Tsinghua mirror and enable aria2 downloads:

scoop config SCOOP_REPO https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/git/scoopinstaller/scoop.git
scoop bucket add extras https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/git/scoop-bucket/extras.git
scoop config aria2-enabled true
scoop config aria2-warning-enabled false
scoop config proxy 172.30.0.1:10808

Pacman (MSYS2)

Edit /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.msys and /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.mingw64:

Server = https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/msys2/msys/$arch
Server = https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/msys2/mingw/x86_64

Update and stay current:

pacman -Syyu
pacman -Syu --disable-download-timeout

Windows Terminal Profiles

Install Windows Terminal via the Microsoft Store or Winget:

winget install --id Microsoft.WindowsTerminal -e

Append the following to settings.json (Ctrl+, → “Open JSON file”):

{
  "defaultProfile": "{58ad8b0c-3ef8-5f4d-bc6f-13e4c00f2530}",
  "profiles": {
    "list": [
      {
        "name": "Debian",
        "source": "Windows.Terminal.Wsl",
        "font": { "face": "JetBrainsMono Nerd Font", "size": 11 },
        "cursorShape": "bar",
        "colorScheme": "One Half Dark"
      },
      {
        "name": "MinGW64",
        "commandline": "C:/msys64/msys2_shell.cmd -mingw64 -shell zsh",
        "icon": "C:\\msys64\\mingw64.ico",
        "font": { "face": "JetBrainsMono Nerd Font", "size": 11 },
        "cursorShape": "bar",
        "colorScheme": "One Half Dark"
      },
      {
        "name": "PowerShell",
        "source": "Windows.Terminal.PowershellCore",
        "font": { "face": "JetBrainsMono Nerd Font", "size": 11 },
        "cursorShape": "bar",
        "colorScheme": "One Half Dark"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Use the profile Appearance tab or oh-my-posh font install to verify the Nerd Font is active; otherwise icons and prompt glyphs will appear garbled.

Conclusion

This rebuild delivers a portable workflow:

zsh + oh-my-zsh for consistent shell ergonomics
PowerShell + oh-my-posh for modern Windows scripting
Doom Emacs as the cross-platform editor
Shared V2RayN proxy and Tsinghua mirrors for predictable networking
Scoop and Pacman for fast package management
Curated Windows Terminal profiles as the single launchpad

With everything documented, spinning up a fresh Windows or Linux guest now takes minutes instead of days.

Reference links

Emacs Development Environment

Introduction#

Hardware Baseline#

Networking and Mirrors#

Sharing the Windows V2RayN Proxy#

Debian mirror (Tsinghua University)#

Python pip mirror (Tsinghua University)#

Shell Tooling#

zsh + oh-my-zsh#

PowerShell + oh-my-posh#

Doom Emacs Across Platforms#

Shared installation steps#

WSL Debian#

VirtualBox Debian#

MSYS2 MinGW64 (inside Windows Terminal)#

MicroPython Build Toolchain#

Prerequisites (WSL and VirtualBox Debian)#

Prerequisites (MSYS2 MinGW64)#

Clone and build#

Flashing helper#

Package Managers#

Scoop (Windows)#

Pacman (MSYS2)#

Windows Terminal Profiles#

Conclusion#