Here’s how I set up my most recent fresh Windows install on my Thinkpad, for use as a development machine.

In BIOS

1. Enable virtualization
2. Disable fingerprint reader
3. Switch fn / ctrl, and enable primary function for fn keys (so pressing F2 yields F2)

During Windows 11 Pro Install

1. Follow the partitioning guide from [[drive-partitioning-for-dual-booting]]
2. Follow the username guide from [[installing-windows-with-custom-user-folder-name]]
3. Disable all location settings

Basic configuration

1. Wifi driver won’t work, so connect via ethernet
2. Go to Windows update and apply all updates. Windows will reboot a few times
3. Go to Windows update -> advanced options, and check “Notify me when a restart is required”
4. Go to Desktop, right click -> display settings -> scale -> 100%
5. Right click on taskbar -> taskbar settings
   1. Disable all the excess icons
   2. Taskbar behaviors -> alignment -> left
   3. Unpin MSFT store
   4. Unpin Edge
6. Login to windows now (since internet will actually work)
7. Windows key -> “Date and time settings” -> change timezone
8. Windows key -> “Developer settings”
   1. Developer mode on
   2. Apply all file explorer settings
   3. Maybe apply remote desktop settings
   4. Apply powershell settings
9. Hit the Windows key, then right click on various junk apps and remove them
10. Windows key -> “Add or remove programs” -> uninstall junk
    1. Spotify
    2. Disney+
    3. Mail and Calendar
    4. OneDrive
    5. etc

Applications install

1. Install Microsoft office
2. Install Chocolatey
3. Install Chrome, and then change all default apps to use Chrome instead of Edge

WSL setup

1. Open Windows Terminal -> wsl --install -d Ubuntu
2. Reboot
3. Set unixname to be the same as your Windows username (which should be of your choosing, e.g. vasuagrawal, thanks to previous instructions)
4. Set password to whatever

Terminal

TODO: Install my powershell profile

Git configuration

1
2

  git config --global user.email "[email protected]"
  git config --global user.name "Your Name"

Take 2

• Install Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
• Update the scrollback size in the advanced settings to something other than 0. 0 does not in fact mean unlimited, and instead seems to just disable scrollback entirely.