| File | Purpose |
| --- | --- |
-| `setup-windows.bat` | Entry point. Runs the non-elevated, per-user half (winget installs, user `PATH` edits, global git config), then launches the elevated half and prints its log. |
-| `setup-windows-with-uac.ps1` | The elevated half, started via UAC by the batch file. Enables `ssh-agent`, installs and starts OpenSSH Server, installs `rsync.exe` to the machine `PATH`, then installs Visual Studio 2022 Community with the required components, the WDK, and the Windows Performance Toolkit. Can also be run directly from an Administrator prompt. |
+| `setup-windows.bat` | Entry point. Runs the winget installs, then launches the elevated half and prints its log, then runs the non-elevated script. |
+| `setup-windows-no-uac.ps1` | The non-elevated, per-user half: WinMerge and BinSkim on the user `PATH`, and the global git config (identity, plus `core.sshCommand`). Can also be run directly from an ordinary prompt. |
+| `setup-windows-with-uac.ps1` | The elevated half, started via UAC by the batch file. Enables `ssh-agent`, installs the OpenSSH Client and Server capabilities and starts `sshd`, unpacks the `rsync-windows` release zip for this architecture (`rsync.exe` plus the `ssh.exe` it runs) into `C:\Tools\rsync` on the machine `PATH`, then installs Visual Studio 2022 Community with the required components, the WDK, and the Windows Performance Toolkit, and reports whether Intel VTune Profiler is present. Can also be run directly from an Administrator prompt. |
+| `setup-windows-7-test-env.bat` | Prepares a **Windows 7 VM** as a test target driven from the host by `VBoxManage guestcontrol`. Copy it into the guest and run it there; it is idempotent, so re-run it after any snapshot restore. The per-user half needs no UAC (crash-dialog suppression, no screen blanking, a staging directory, the shared folder on `Z:`); the machine-wide half is skipped with a notice unless run elevated inside the guest. It then reports what the box can actually test: DWM composition, printers, audio capture devices. |
## Usage
-1. **Edit `setup-windows.bat` first.** The global git identity near the middle of
- the file is placeholder text:
+1. **Edit `setup-windows-no-uac.ps1` first.** The global git identity near the
+ top of the file is empty:
- ```bat
- git config --global user.name "PLACEHOLDER_NAME"
- git config --global user.email "PLACEHOLDER_EMAIL"
+ ```powershell
+ $GitUserName = '' # e.g. 'Ada Lovelace'
+ $GitUserEmail = '' # e.g. 'ada@example.com'
```
- Substitute your own name and email, or comment both lines out to keep your
- identity per-repository.
+ Fill in your own name and email, or leave them empty to keep your identity
+ per-repository - the script skips `user.name` / `user.email` rather than
+ writing a placeholder, and says so. Everything else in that script is set
+ either way.
2. Run it from a normal (non-elevated) prompt:
- The elevated half writes a transcript to `setup-windows-uac.log` next to the
script; the batch file prints it when the elevated window closes. The log is
gitignored, as it contains local paths.
-- Both halves are idempotent — re-running skips anything already installed.
+- **git uses a Win32-OpenSSH client.** `setup-windows-no-uac.ps1` sets
+ `core.sshCommand`. Git for Windows otherwise prefers its own bundled MSYS2
+ `ssh.exe`, which cannot reach the Windows `ssh-agent` service that the elevated
+ half enables - Win32-OpenSSH publishes the agent on a named pipe the MSYS2
+ build does not speak. Without this, keys loaded with `ssh-add` from PowerShell
+ are invisible to `git`, and a push falls back to hunting for a key file and
+ prompting for its passphrase. The value uses forward slashes on purpose: git
+ parses `core.sshCommand` with shell quoting rules, in which a backslash is an
+ escape character.
+- **Which `ssh.exe` git gets.** `C:\Tools\rsync\ssh.exe` — the fast build the
+ elevated half unpacks — if it is there, `%WINDIR%/System32/OpenSSH/ssh.exe`
+ otherwise. It is the same client with the same `~/.ssh`, agent and
+ `known_hosts`; the difference is the stdin pump, and without it anything git
+ *pushes* is capped at ~17 MB/s. Candidates are tried by **running** them
+ (`ssh -V`), not by `Test-Path`: the fast build needs a `libcrypto.dll` that an
+ image without the OpenSSH Client capability does not have, and a client that
+ will not start should be found here rather than on the next `git push`.
+ This is also why `setup-windows.bat` now runs the elevated half **first** — the
+ fast `ssh.exe` has to exist before the git config step can prefer it. The
+ non-elevated half still runs even when the elevated one failed; it just falls
+ back. Re-run `setup-windows-no-uac.ps1` on its own at any time to re-pick.
+- All three scripts are idempotent — re-running skips anything already installed.
BinSkim in particular checks NuGet for the newest stable version *before*
downloading: the package is a self-contained .NET build well over 100 MB, and
re-provisioning an up-to-date box should not pay for it. The installed version
is tracked in `nupkg-version.txt` beside the tool.
+- `setup-windows-no-uac.ps1` runs its steps independently: one failing warns and
+ the rest still run, and it exits 1 if any did. The `.bat` reports that and
+ carries on to the elevated half, which is the part worth the UAC prompt. Use
+ `-Skip` to re-run a subset, e.g. `.\setup-windows-no-uac.ps1 -Skip BinSkim`.
+ Run it **non-elevated**: it writes per-user state (the `HKCU` `PATH`, the
+ `.gitconfig` under `%USERPROFILE%`), so an elevated run would configure the
+ administrator's profile instead. It warns if you do.
- **Remote access.** OpenSSH Server is installed from the Windows on-demand
capability (10/1809+), set to start automatically, and given an inbound TCP 22
firewall rule on *all* profiles — a VM's host-only or bridged adapter is
a profile. Key auth needs `~/.ssh/authorized_keys` ACL'd to just you and
`SYSTEM`; accounts in the Administrators group use
`C:\ProgramData\ssh\administrators_authorized_keys` instead.
+- **rsync brings its own `ssh.exe`.** That release ships as one zip per
+ architecture — `rsync-windows-x64.zip` / `rsync-windows-x86.zip`, each holding
+ `rsync.exe`, an `ssh.exe`, `COPYING.txt` and `NOTICE-ssh.txt` — and the
+ elevated half picks the zip for the OS bitness, verifies it against the
+ published `.sha256`, and unpacks the pair together. Together is the point:
+ `rsync.exe` prefers an `ssh.exe` sitting in its own directory, and the release
+ builds one because the client Windows ships reads its stdin 3 KB at a time,
+ which holds a transfer *from* the box at ~17 MB/s however fast the link is.
+ Nothing else about it differs — same `~/.ssh`, same `ssh-agent`, same
+ `known_hosts` — and a bare `ssh` still resolves to the in-box client, which
+ sits ahead of `C:\Tools\rsync` on the `PATH`. It links against the
+ `libcrypto.dll` the **OpenSSH Client** capability puts in `System32` (Windows'
+ own LibreSSL, which uses AES-NI) and ships no copy of its own, so the elevated
+ half installs that capability first and falls back to `rsync.exe` alone,
+ warning, on an image that will not offer it.
+- The `rsync` download follows the `releases/latest/download/` redirect rather
+ than the GitHub API: unauthenticated API calls are rate-limited to 60/hour per
+ IP, which a provisioning run behind a shared NAT can genuinely exhaust. To hold
+ a box on a known build, pin the tag in `$RsyncUrl`
+ (`.../releases/download/<tag>/<asset>`) instead.
- Visual Studio is installed in three labelled passes (base workload, Clang/LLVM,
XP toolset) so a failure identifies which component group is responsible.
+- **Windows Performance Analyzer is not part of Visual Studio.** VS has its own
+ Performance Profiler, which is a different, `.diagsession`-based tool and
+ cannot open an `.etl`. WPA ships with `xperf` and `wpr` in the Windows
+ Performance Toolkit, which exists in exactly two places: as an optional
+ *feature* of the Windows SDK (`OptionId.WindowsPerformanceToolkit`) and inside
+ the Windows ADK, which bundles the same toolkit. Whether the SDK install that
+ Visual Studio performs selects that feature varies by version, so the elevated
+ half **detects first** — `%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Kits\10\Windows
+ Performance Toolkit`, its 64-bit twin, and the ADK location — and only falls
+ back to `winget install Microsoft.WindowsADK` when nothing is there. It then
+ re-asserts that directory on the machine `PATH` (the toolkit's own installer
+ usually does this, and the Start Menu gets *Windows Kits > Windows Performance
+ Toolkit* shortcuts for WPA and WPR). To install just the toolkit instead of the
+ whole ADK, run the standalone SDK setup with
+ `winsdksetup.exe /features OptionId.WindowsPerformanceToolkit /q`. A newer WPA
+ also exists in the Microsoft Store (`winget install --id 9N0W1B2BXGNZ --source
+ msstore`); it is not installed here because the Store source needs an
+ interactive, signed-in session, which the unattended elevated half does not
+ have.
+- **Intel VTune Profiler is reported, not installed.** The elevated half prints
+ whether it is on the box, its version, and the path to `vtune.exe`; if it is
+ missing it prints the download page instead (and says so if the CPU is not
+ Intel). Automating the install is not worth it here: the offline installer is a
+ ~750 MB download from a URL carrying a per-release GUID with no "latest"
+ redirect behind it, so every new build would mean editing a hard-coded link,
+ and it is only worth having on Intel silicon since hardware event-based
+ sampling reads Intel PMU counters. It does install unattended if you want it
+ scripted elsewhere:
+
+ ```powershell
+ intel-vtune-<version>_offline.exe -a --silent --cli --eula accept
+ ```
+
+ **Run it from an administrator account, elevated.** Hardware event-based
+ sampling (`uarch-exploration`, `memory-access`, `hotspots -knob
+ sampling-mode=hw`) requires it, and VTune warns about that at the top of every
+ unelevated run. Worth knowing that the failure it gives there is *"cannot
+ recognize the processor"*, which reads like a hardware problem and is not one:
+ the drivers (`sepdrv5`, `sepdal`, `vtss`) are installed and running, and VTune
+ identifies the PMU through them. There is no group to join to get around it —
+ the Linux driver can be handed to a `vtune` group, but on Windows the
+ documented answer is to run as administrator.
+
+- **Collect traces from an elevated Administrator session. Non-elevated
+ collection was tried here and abandoned.** The attempt was to put one ordinary
+ account into `BUILTIN\Performance Log Users`, which appears in the default
+ security descriptors ETW keeps per provider GUID under
+ `HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WMI\Security`, and collect without a UAC
+ prompt. It does not survive contact with the real workflow: `xperf -on base`
+ and `wpr -start` drive the *NT Kernel Logger*, reserved for Administrators and
+ LocalSystem, and granting the group `SeSystemProfilePrivilege` ("Profile system
+ performance") plus an explicit ACE for `TRACELOG_ACCESS_KERNEL_LOGGER` on
+ `SystemTraceControlGuid` — all three in place, across a reboot — still answered
+
+ ```text
+ xperf: error: NT Kernel Logger: Access is denied. (0x5).
+ ```
+
+ It is not a check an ACE overrides, and the same wall turned up often enough
+ elsewhere that the whole approach was dropped rather than carried as a
+ half-working path. **Sign in to an administrator account and run `xperf`, `wpr`
+ and VTune from an elevated prompt.** Analysis is the exception and never needed
+ any of this: `wpa.exe` opens an existing `.etl` as a plain user.
+
+ If an earlier revision of these scripts ran on a box, it left that account in
+ the group. Take it back out with:
+
+ ```powershell
+ net localgroup "Performance Log Users" DOMAIN\user /delete
+ ```
+
+ Two revisions also granted the privilege and the ACE. Undo the privilege in
+ `secpol.msc` > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment > "Profile system
+ performance" by removing Performance Log Users. The ACEs sit in the
+ `{9e814aad-3204-11d2-9a82-006008a86939}` value under
+ `HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\WMI\Security`: strip the `LU` entries
+ from that descriptor rather than deleting the value, which also carries entries
+ for SYSTEM, Administrators and two service accounts.
+
- The scripts were extracted from a native Windows project, so the component
selection is tuned for that: Spectre-mitigated runtimes, the v141/XP toolset,
and driver-kit headers. Trim the component lists in the `.ps1` if you don't
vilimpoc.org / repos / dotfiles / blobdiff