[cyber_kinetist]

I really don't want to start up a separate Linux VM just to open up a shell. (I already crossed out Cygwin / MSYS on the list because of performance issues...)

[cyber_kinetist]

Also, I need to compile actual Windows binaries using the shell (MSVC, clang-cl), and I obviously can’t do that under a Linux VM.

[yamtaddle]

MSVC's command line tools kick off just fine from shell scripts running under WSL2. Much to my surprise. I assume it doesn't run in the VM.

[chasil]

Busybox for Windows has a very accessible shell.

[cyber_kinetist]

Yeah, I've used that before. But it was a bit too minimal for my tastes.