In Windows, if you do not want to use Cygwin Terminal, you can also use the Windows Command Prompt. To launch this program, type cmd in the Search Box. (Command Prompt also works, but cmd is much shorter). This author would suggest you right-click on the application and pin it to the task bar:

When you launch the Command Prompt, you will notice the Microsoft notification at the top together with a copyright, and then you see the current working directory followed by a greater-than symbol prompting you for input:

To get a directory listing of all sub-directories of the current working directory together with any files in the current working, use the dir command:

dwharder@CHURCHILL ~
C:\Users\dwharder>dir
 Volume in drive C is OSDisk
 Volume Serial Number is 5415-E708

 Directory of C:\Users\dwharder

2019-05-21  05:32 PM    <DIR>          .
2019-05-21  05:32 PM    <DIR>          ..
2019-05-21  05:33 PM    <DIR>          .eclipse
2019-05-17  03:44 PM    <DIR>          3D Objects
2019-05-17  03:44 PM    <DIR>          Contacts
2019-05-28  05:03 PM    <DIR>          Desktop
2019-05-21  02:04 PM    <DIR>          Digital Signature
2019-05-21  01:27 PM    <DIR>          Documents
2019-05-28  04:09 PM    <DIR>          Downloads
2019-05-23  05:34 PM    <DIR>          eclipse
2019-05-28  02:42 PM    <DIR>          eclipse-workspace
2019-05-17  03:44 PM    <DIR>          Favorites
2019-05-17  03:44 PM    <DIR>          Links
2019-05-17  03:44 PM    <DIR>          Music
2019-05-18  03:47 PM    <DIR>          OneDrive
2019-05-17  03:46 PM    <DIR>          Pictures
2019-05-17  03:44 PM    <DIR>          Saved Games
2019-05-17  03:44 PM    <DIR>          Searches
2019-05-17  03:44 PM    <DIR>          Videos
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
              19 Dir(s)  404,651,388,928 bytes free

As you can see, there is already the eclipse and eclipse-workspace sub-directories, so we can change to the workspace sub-directory by using the change directory command cd:

C:\Users\dwharder>cd eclipse-workspace

C:\Users\dwharder\eclipse-workspace>

If you want to change to a parent directory, use cd .., where .. is always an alias for the current working directory's parent directory.

C:\Users\dwharder\eclipse-workspace>cd ..

C:\Users\dwharder>cd ..

C:\Users>cd ..

C:\Users>dir
 Volume in drive C is OSDisk
 Volume Serial Number is 5415-E708

 Directory of C:\Users

2019-05-21  12:06 PM    <DIR>          .
2019-05-21  12:06 PM    <DIR>          ..
2019-05-17  11:44 AM    <DIR>          Administrator
2019-05-21  05:32 PM    <DIR>          dwharder
2019-05-21  12:11 PM    <DIR>          ece
2019-05-21  12:06 PM    <DIR>          pc-admin
2019-05-17  11:40 AM    <DIR>          Public
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               7 Dir(s)  404,650,082,304 bytes free

To navigate back down, there are some short-cuts that can be used. For example, if you now start typing the first letter of your username in Windows, such as

C:\Users>cd dw

and then press the Tab key, it will find all files or directories that start with those letters and by repeatedly pressing the Tab key, you can cycle through them until you find the one you want:

C:\Users>cd dwharder

Next, type a backslash and ec:

C:\Users>cd dwharder\ec

and again press Tab. It will now cycle through eclipse and eclipse-workspace. Choose the latter.

C:\Users>cd dwharder\eclipse-workspace

C:\Users\dwharder\eclipse-workspace>dir
 Volume in drive C is OSDisk
 Volume Serial Number is 5415-E708

 Directory of C:\Users\dwharder\eclipse-workspace

2019-05-28  02:42 PM    <DIR>          .
2019-05-28  02:42 PM    <DIR>          ..
2019-05-21  05:32 PM    <DIR>          .metadata
2019-05-28  03:21 PM    <DIR>          Project 0
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
              16 Dir(s)  404,648,574,976 bytes free

We can change into the project directory:

C:\Users\dwharder\eclipse-workspace>cd P

and press the Tab key. You will now see

C:\Users\dwharder\eclipse-workspace>cd "Project 0"

The directory name is in double quotes because this tells the prompt that the space is part of the name.

C:\Users\dwharder\eclipse-workspace\Project 0>dir
 Volume in drive C is OSDisk
 Volume Serial Number is 5415-E708

 Directory of C:\Users\dwharder\eclipse-workspace\Project 0

2019-05-28  05:31 PM    <DIR>          .
2019-05-28  05:31 PM    <DIR>          ..
2019-05-21  06:04 PM            12,640 .cproject
2019-05-21  06:04 PM               838 .project
2019-05-21  06:04 PM    <DIR>          .settings
2019-05-21  06:17 PM    <DIR>          Debug
2019-05-21  06:16 PM               176 main.cpp
               3 File(s)         13,654 bytes
               4 Dir(s)  404,648,267,776 bytes free

You will see your source file main.cpp and other files and directories. You can ignore the rest for now.

and pressing the Tab key:

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/
$ cd Project\ 0/

The \ that appears in front of the space indicates that the space is part of the name of directory. The backspace is the escape character in Cygwin Terminal (we will discuss escape characters in class when we describe strings). If you do not have spaces in your project names you will not ever have to deal with escape characters while using the Cygwin Terminal.

If you do a directory listing, you will see that your source file is there, but Eclipse also created a Debug directory:

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ ls
Debug  main.cpp

We will ignore the debug directory and look at compiling the source file. The compiler is a program that takes a source file as an argument and compiles that source file into an executable.

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ g++ main.cpp

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ ls
a.exe  Debug  main.cpp

The default name of the executable is a.exe. You can change the name by using the output option -o:

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ g++ -o main.exe main.cpp

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ ls
a.exe  Debug  main.cpp  main.exe

To delete a file, you can either to back into Windows and remove the file using the File Explorer application, or you can use the remove command:

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ rm a.exe

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ ls
Debug  main.cpp  main.exe

Okay, now let's run this executable file:

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ main.exe
-bash: main.exe: command not found

But the file is there!? You may be wondering why it is not found, especially if you are already familiar with Window's Command Prompt.

You may recall that when you installed Cygwin, you had to update the Path environment variable. There is a similar PATH environment variable in Unix:

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Common Files/O
racle/Java/javapath:/cygdrive/c/windows/system32:/cygdrive/c/windows:/
cygdrive/c/windows/System32/Wbem:/cygdrive/c/windows/System32/WindowsP
owerShell/v1.0:/cygdrive/c/windows/System32/OpenSSH:/cygdrive/c/Progra
m Files/MiKTeX 2.9/miktex/bin/x64:/cygdrive/c/Program Files/PuTTY:/cyg
drive/c/Program Files/MATLAB/R2019a/runtime/win64:/cygdrive/c/Program 
Files/MATLAB/R2019a/bin:/cygdrive/c/Cygwin64/bin:/cygdrive/c/Users/dwh
arder/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps

These are the only places that Cygwin Terminal will look for an executable to run, and it does not include the current working directory. Rather than looking at this text, here are these directories:

• /usr/local/bin
• /usr/bin
• /cygdrive/c/Program Files (x86)/Common Files/Oracle/Java/javapath
• /cygdrive/c/windows/system32
• /cygdrive/c/windows
• /cygdrive/c/windows/System32/Wbem
• /cygdrive/c/windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0
• /cygdrive/c/windows/System32/OpenSSH
• /cygdrive/c/Program Files/MiKTeX 2.9/miktex/bin/x64
• /cygdrive/c/Program Files/PuTTY
• /cygdrive/c/Program Files/MATLAB/R2019a/runtime/win64
• /cygdrive/c/Program Files/MATLAB/R2019a/bin
• /cygdrive/c/Cygwin64/bin
• /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps

You can even ask where an executable is:

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ which g++
/usr/bin/g++

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ which ls
/usr/bin/ls

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ which pwd
/usr/bin/pwd

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ which cd
which: no cd in (/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/cygdrive/c/Program Files (x8
6)/Common Files/Oracle/Java/javapath:/cygdrive/c/windows/system32:/cyg
drive/c/windows:/cygdrive/c/windows/System32/Wbem:/cygdrive/c/windows/
System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0:/cygdrive/c/windows/System32/OpenSSH:/
cygdrive/c/Program Files/MiKTeX 2.9/miktex/bin/x64:/cygdrive/c/Program
 Files/PuTTY:/cygdrive/c/Program Files/MATLAB/R2019a/runtime/win64:/cy
gdrive/c/Program Files/MATLAB/R2019a/bin:/cygdrive/c/Cygwin64/bin:/cyg
drive/c/Users/dwharder/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps)

You will note that almost all commands are executable files, with very few exceptions like cd.

If you want to execute a file in the current directory, you must give either an absolute path relative path to the directory. You will recall that the alias for the current directory is ., so the following works:

dwharder@CHURCHILL /cygdrive/c/Users/dwharder/eclipse-workspace/Project 0
$ ./a.exe
Hello world!

If you want to edit your source file, there are many options:

Eclipse

You can continue to use the Eclipse editor for making changes to your source code.

vim

If you want to spend a lot of time learning a very useful editor, the improved version of vi, or vim is always installed on all Unix platforms.

Notepad++

A Windows program where you can use File Explorer to navigate to the appropriate directory and then edit the source file.

gvim

If you liked vim so much, you can also install gvim on Windows.

There are hundreds of other editors available: you are welcome to ask your peers and friends what they use.