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First thing I do is install Cygwin.

Ah, so I'm not the only one experiencing suffering when having to use Windows. :)

Recently learned about AndLinux [1] and CoLinux [2] -- running a Linux kernel atop Windows. Didn't use it yet but looks promising.

I tend to drop windows ports of a bunch of unix command line utils somewhere in my PATH

Install powershell, or use win 7 (comes with powershell). It comes preconfigured with aliases for rm, ls, cat, etc...