Plain Windows Development

So, let's say you walk up to a plain Windows machine with a decently modern version. What kind of development can you do without installing anything that might mess things or change system behavior?

Without Installing Anything

If you really don't want to install anything, here are some options for you.

• .NET Framework with C#. You won't get .NET Core, but you can use the basic .NET Framework libraries by using the compiler at %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\csc.exe. This is handy for small projects, but gets painful because of missing tools like msbuild, resgen or sn.
• PowerShell. Again, not the Core version (pwsh), but you do have a version of powershell available.
• JScript. If you need to do any Automation-based thing (fewer and fewer these days!), you always have VBScript and JScript at your disposal via cscript.

Portable Installs

If you need something else, a portable setup might be the ticket.

A portable app is one stays in a single folder. Because it doesn't affect the system or write outside, it doesn't need admin rights to install, and it's easy to sync with something like OneDrive or by putting on a USB stick.

If you can do this, here are some more options for you.

• WinPython, which auto-extracts.
• .NET Core can be installed as a portable thing.
• NodeJS. There are a few portable projects, but this post describes how to redirect to an unzipped installation.
• golang.
• MinGW has an installer that runs as non-admin and you can copy the installed folder around.

You can also take a look at scoop.sh, a command-line installer for Windows that defaults everything to ~/scoop (thanks Craig for the tip!)

Happy lightweight development!

Tags:  csharp coding

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