busybox-on-windows

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

How to use a Win32 build of BusyBox to run many of the standard UNIX command line tools on Windows.

5installs

Added on2026-02-04

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add davila7/claude-code-templates busybox-on-windows

BusyBox is a single binary that implements many common Unix tools.

Use this skill only on Windows. If you are on UNIX, then stop here.

Run the following steps only if you cannot find a

busybox.exe

file in the same directory as this document is. These are PowerShell commands, if you have a classic

cmd.exe

terminal, then you must use

powershell -Command "..."

to run them.

Print the type of CPU:

Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Processor | Select-Object Name, NumberOfCores, MaxClockSpeed

Print the OS versions:

Get-ItemProperty "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" | Select-Object ProductName, DisplayVersion, CurrentBuild

Download a suitable build of BusyBox by running one of these PowerShell commands:

32-bit x86 (ANSI):

$ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'; Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://frippery.org/files/busybox/busybox.exe -OutFile busybox.exe

64-bit x86 (ANSI):

$ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'; Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://frippery.org/files/busybox/busybox64.exe -OutFile busybox.exe

64-bit x86 (Unicode):

$ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'; Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://frippery.org/files/busybox/busybox64u.exe -OutFile busybox.exe

64-bit ARM (Unicode):

$ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'; Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://frippery.org/files/busybox/busybox64a.exe -OutFile busybox.exe

Useful commands:

Usage: Prefix the UNIX command with

busybox.exe

, for example:

busybox.exe ls -1

If you need to run a UNIX command under another CWD, then use the absolute path to

busybox.exe

.