Included with the Cygwin suite are most of the common Linux command-line tools and quite a few graphical applications, giving you the look and feel of a Linux machine on top of your MS Windows box.

This series of posts will help Linux/Unix newbies to feel comfortable on the command line.

Get started with Bash, Unix pipes, directory navigation, sudo, Nano, and other command-line essentials ...

Cygwin is an environment for Windows, similar to Linux, that provides a Linux API emulation layer and a collection of tools that are normally only available on systems that use open source tools ...

If you're already using the Unix-like Cygwin, it's an easy hack to embed Cygwin's commands into your standard Windows comand prompt; if not, it might be worth checking out the free download.