About Cygwin:

- Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It is controlled by a DLL (cygwin1.dll) layer providing 
  POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface) system call functionality. It works in
  Windows XP | 2000 | NT | ME | 98 | 95 (all x86 platforms except Windows CE).

- All the unix native favorites are present... awk, sed, tail, perl... while running Windows in the background. 
- Building from source just like any Linux/etc...
- You can even trigger Windows executables to run with syntax of ...... /home/Owner> cmd \c "C:\temp\go.bat"