# techie question: Any freeware versions of Korn Shell for Windows? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 7, 2003, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/techie-question-any-freeware-versions-of-korn-shell-for-windows/206042 "2003-10-07T13:00:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![exvex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b77776/32.png) [@exvex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/exvex)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/techie-question-any-freeware-versions-of-korn-shell-for-windows/206042/1 "2003-10-07T13:00:35Z")
Are there any reliable freeware versions of Korn Shell that will run Korn Shell scripts on a Windows 2000 machine? Currently my company is using MKS Toolkit Version 6.1. However they want to use freeware instead. Clients don’t want to pay for the MKS Toolkit license anymore. The result is they want several hundred Korn Shell scripts that currently run on Sun, AIX, and Windows (via MKS Toolkit) platforms converted into TkL scripts. Ideally I would like to remain in Korn Shell and not do this port. Is any freeware available that will let me run the existing scripts in Windows? UNIX Korn Shell version: Version M-11/16/88i MKS Toolkit Version: 6.1 ---
**Author:** ![Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@Dreaming\_of\_Maria\_Callas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dreaming_of_Maria_Callas)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/techie-question-any-freeware-versions-of-korn-shell-for-windows/206042/2 "2003-10-07T13:13:23Z")
If you install [Cygwin](http://www.cygwin.com) you can run any of the shells developed for \*nixes as long as you can compile from source. I believe that there are several free-software implementations of the Korn shell. UnuMondo ---
**Author:** ![exvex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b77776/32.png) [@exvex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/exvex)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/techie-question-any-freeware-versions-of-korn-shell-for-windows/206042/3 "2003-10-07T13:45:33Z")
\>UnuMondo suggests Cygwin Thanks for the quick response. Unfortunately they looked into Cygwin here before but found it was not suitable. You have to compile the code locally so it was too much of a pain. ---
**Author:** ![pestie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e5b9ba/32.png) [@pestie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pestie)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/techie-question-any-freeware-versions-of-korn-shell-for-windows/206042/4 "2003-10-07T16:05:11Z")
I’ve installed Cygwin before and I didn’t have to compile anything locally. I was able to choose from a vast array of precompiled software at install time. A quick Google search on “win32 korn shell” turned up quite a few hits, too, so take a look around. There are lots of people who have to work under Windows and don’t want to give up their favorite UNIX tools. ---
**Author:** ![exvex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b77776/32.png) [@exvex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/exvex)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/techie-question-any-freeware-versions-of-korn-shell-for-windows/206042/5 "2003-10-07T16:30:07Z")
\>From pestie \>I’ve installed Cygwin before and I didn’t have to compile anything locally. \>win32 korn shell" turned up quite a few hits Okay, thank you. I didn’t work on the Cygwin setup so I’m hearing it was a pain second-hand. I’ll investigate it further. I’ll look into the other shells listed in Google as well. I really don’t want to move everything over to TkL. That’s just going to be a tremendous waste of effort. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/techie-question-any-freeware-versions-of-korn-shell-for-windows/206042/6 "2003-10-07T16:38:27Z")
Cygwin is most definitely not pain to setup. And you get just get the basics, the cygwin lib and Korn shell. No compiling needed. ---
**Author:** ![exvex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b77776/32.png) [@exvex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/exvex)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/techie-question-any-freeware-versions-of-korn-shell-for-windows/206042/7 "2003-10-07T16:54:56Z")
\>From ftg \>Cygwin is most definitely not pain to setup. I’ll have to try it out myself and see how it goes. Thanks!