Setting up a CloudStack dev environment on Windows

Step 1) Install Cygwin.

Cygwin will give you a unix like bash shell for your windows.

To install Cygwin, you download and run the setup.

Cygwin and many utilities do not like spaces in the path.  When asked for the path to install to, use a path such as 'c:\bin\cygwin' or 'c:\cygwin'.
Please use following mirror for proper download and install
http://mirrors.kernel.org
http://cygwin.mirrors.hoobly.com
The install option will download, cache, and install the packages that you have selected.
The selection of default packages to install is inadequate, because development and common editors are not included.
Under 'Devel', select git for 'Install'. Or set the whole 'Develop' category to install. This takes more time, but it is simpler.
Under 'Editors', select vim or emacs depending on which you expect to be available from the Cygwin command line.
Under 'Libs', select libsasl2
Under 'Net', select ca-certificates and openssh
Select Python for 'Install'
Under 'Utils', select genisoimage and mkisofs

Unfortunately, the download can be slow depending on the mirror you select (~30 min or more).

Set unnecessary package categories to 'Uninstall', e.g. KDE and Games.

Once installed, do the following.  This will make sure the maven build can access the two utilities
Open a CommandPrompt with admin privileges.
cd to the directory where you installed cygwin, i.e. c:\cygwin\bin
mklink mkisofs.exe genisoimage.exe
mklink python.exe python2.7.exe
Run Cygwin
Add the following to your /etc/fstab: "none /cyg cygdrive binary,noacl,posix=0,user 0 0".  This line does two things.  Instead of /cygdrive/c to change to a different drive, you type /cyg/c which is much shorter.  It also removes the posix acl semantics
which causes problems with the build because the build tries to manipulate file permissions and causes big problems with the Windows file system.

After completing the install, you can run cygwin setup again to update the packages.  In that case, it will use the packages you last selected as the defaults.