CygwinPortable

A portable Cygwin environment with much options. It's very useful for "static" installations too. It can create ShellExtensions in Windows Explorer ("Open Folder in Cygwin", "Open Drive in Cygwin", "Run in Cygwin"). "Open with -> CygwinPortable.exe" is also supported (you can register e.g. .sh extensions with CygwinPortable.exe). The default installation support XServer.

ShellExtensions needs admin rights (Only one time to register the ShellExtension - After successfully registration you can run Cygwin Portable with UAC enabled). CygwinPrtable run without ShellExtensions but they are pretty comfortable :-)

Download ready to use files

You can download prebuild version on http://www.cybesystems.com/index.php/downloads. I've compiled a PAF (PortableApps) and a 7z compressed version. Cygwin defaults are already installed.

First Start

• Start CygwinPortable.exe - The setup.exe is download automatically
• Optional: Enter a new username if you want (cygwin is default username and home directory. Should be OK in most cases)
• Optional: Change options if you want. The default settings are OK for most users.
• Let the cygwin install (defaults are cygwin defaults + vim,X11,xinit,wget,tar,gawk,bzip2 packages)
• Enjoy Cygwin :-)

Commandline Parameters:

These options overrides the options from Data/config.ini

• CygwinPortable.exe -help -> Show help screen
• CygwinPortable.exe -config -> Open Config (setup.exe)
• CygwinPortable.exe -exit [0/1] -> Exit the cygwin window after execution
• CygwinPortable.exe -path [PATH] -> Open the folder in path or execute the file (if the file is executable)
• CygwinPortable.exe [PATH] -> Open the folder in path or execute the file (if the file is executable) All other parameters are ignored (needed for "open with" in Windows)

PortableApps

PortableApps (http://portableapps.com/) Tool is supported. Copy the Cygwin Portable folder to USBSTICK:\PortableApps

Special Folders

There are 2 special Folders - Samples are included:

• Data/ShellScript: Quick access to ShellScripts (rightclick Trayicon -> ShellScripts)
• Data/Shortcuts: Quick access to Windows Shortcuts (rightclick Trayicon -> Shortcuts)

Settings

There are some interesting options - Rightclick on the CygwinPortable Trayicon -> "Cygwin Portable Settings"

Settings:

• Shell: You can choose between mintty (default) and ConEmu. I've already included the last stable version of ConEmu (you can replace it with beta if you want - You should only preserve my ConEmu.xml file).
• Executable File Extensions: Define what extensions are should by executed with Cygwin. This will NOT register the files directly ! This option will tell Cygwin Portable if a "open with" under windows is a extension that can be used from bash. If you open a file with a unknown extesion CygwinPortable will open the folder and not run the file.
• Use TrayMenu: Enable/Disable the Traymenu (NOT RECOMMEND !) - if the Traymenu is disabled you can reactivate this option in Data/config.ini -> TrayMenu=True
• Exit after execution: If you open a file in Cygwin (e.g. a Shellscript) the window is closed after successfully execution. If you want see the output leave it disabled.
• Disable Message Boxes: If CygwinPortable failed it will show the error in a Message Box. Disable it if you are working in a non GUI environment.
• Add Windows PATH variables to Cygwin: Disable if cygwin should not be able to access Windows programs from path (useful if you have e.g. Git installed but you want to use cygwin git)

Installer:

• Cygwin Mirror: The Cygwin mirror where the packages will be downloaded.
• Cygwin Ports Mirror: Cygwin Ports have much more packages than the official Cygwin mirrors. Use it if needed
• First install additions: The packages that are additional installed to the default Cygwin packages
• Delete unneeded files: Drop unneeded files or files that are not working in portable mode (e.g. cygwin.bat)
• Install unofficial Tools: Install files from other/unofficial folder. Default package is only apt-cyg (a tool that works like apt-get from debian based distros)

Expert:

• Delete conmplete installation: Drop all folders from ("Drop these folders on Reinstall"). Use it if you want to complete reinstall cygwin
• Drop these folders on Reinstall: See info above
• Username: Change the username and home directory

Compile

If you want to compile CygwinPortable by yourself you need Python 3.4, PyQT 5.4, cx_freeze and pywin32 - Run CygwinPortableFreezer.py and it should work :-)

Feedback

Let me know if you have any problems or suggestions

Thanks for reading