Want some of the power of the *nix shells without installing Cygwin? A more lightweight alternative is the GNU CoreUtils package: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/coreutils.htm The installer includes the basic file, shell and text manipulation utilities of the GNU operating system: Download and run the installer. To make the utilities always accessible, add %PROGRAMFILES%\GnuWin32\bin to your PATH environment [...]