Re: Microsoft Success Built On Sabotage And Bribery

On 2026-07-07, InterLinked <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 6/30/2026 8:03 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> 
>> I found a collection of Unix-style utilities (ls, grep, cut, uniq,
>> etc.) years ago.  The .EXEs' date stamps range from 1999 to 2003.
>> They're enough for me to sort of pretend I'm using real tools,
>> rather than CMD.EXE's brain-damaged not-quite-equivalents.
>
> Maybe this is what you're alluding to, but the idea of UNIX utilities on 
> Windows is not a new thing with WSL; it's been around for a quarter 
> century via the UNIX Subsystem for Windows, which was built in to 
> premium editions of Windows (e.g. Windows 7 Enterprise/Ultimate, which 
> is what I still use).
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX
>
> Then, you can run tools like grep, sed, etc. from Command Prompt. No
> emulators, virtualization, etc. is being used:
>
> C:\Users\interlinked>grep
> usage: grep [-abcEFGHhIiLlnoPqRrSsUvwx] [-A num] [-B num [-C[num]]
>           [-e pattern] [-f file] [--binary-files=value] [--context[=num]]
>           [--line-buffered] [pattern] [file ...]

No, that's definitely not the package I have.  For instance:

C:\>grep
Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE]...
Try `grep --help' for more information.

C:\>grep --help
Usage: grep [OPTION]... PATTERN [FILE] ...
Search for PATTERN in each FILE or standard input.
Example: grep -i 'hello world' menu.h main.c

Regexp selection and interpretation:
  -E, --extended-regexp     PATTERN is an extended regular expression
  -F, --fixed-strings       PATTERN is a set of newline-separated strings
  -G, --basic-regexp        PATTERN is a basic regular expression
  -e, --regexp=PATTERN      use PATTERN as a regular expression
  -f, --file=FILE           obtain PATTERN from FILE
  -i, --ignore-case         ignore case distinctions
  -w, --word-regexp         force PATTERN to match only whole words
  -x, --line-regexp         force PATTERN to match only whole lines
  -z, --null-data           a data line ends in 0 byte, not newline

Miscellaneous:
  -s, --no-messages         suppress error messages
  -v, --invert-match        select non-matching lines
  -V, --version             print version information and exit
      --help                display this help and exit
      --mmap                use memory-mapped input if possible

Output control:
  -b, --byte-offset         print the byte offset with output lines
  -n, --line-number         print line number with output lines
  -H, --with-filename       print the filename for each match
  -h, --no-filename         suppress the prefixing filename on output
  -q, --quiet, --silent     suppress all normal output
      --binary-files=TYPE   assume that binary files are TYPE
                            TYPE is 'binary', 'text', or 'without-match'.
  -a, --text                equivalent to --binary-files=text
  -I                        equivalent to --binary-files=without-match
  -d, --directories=ACTION  how to handle directories
                            ACTION is 'read', 'recurse', or 'skip'.
  -r, --recursive           equivalent to --directories=recurse.
  -L, --files-without-match only print FILE names containing no match
  -l, --files-with-matches  only print FILE names containing matches
  -c, --count               only print a count of matching lines per FILE
  -Z, --null                print 0 byte after FILE name

Context control:
  -B, --before-context=NUM  print NUM lines of leading context
  -A, --after-context=NUM   print NUM lines of trailing context
  -C, --context[=NUM]       print NUM (default 2) lines of output context
                            unless overridden by -A or -B
  -NUM                      same as --context=NUM
  -U, --binary              do not strip CR characters at EOL (MSDOS)
  -u, --unix-byte-offsets   report offsets as if CRs were not there (MSDOS)

`egrep' means `grep -E'.  `fgrep' means `grep -F'.
With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard input.  If less than
two FILEs given, assume -h.  Exit status is 0 if match, 1 if no match,
and 2 if trouble.

Report bugs to <[email protected]>.

---------------------------------------

There are lots of other utilities as well, and they've been
enabling me to make a Windows command prompt act sufficiently
Unixy to take some of the pain out of it.

-- 
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  No artificial
\ /  <[email protected]>      |  intelligence was
 X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  used in the creation
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |  of this post.