We can just patch cmd.exe as part of the install process, I'm sure no one will mind:

http://itsme.home.xs4all.nl/projects/misc/patching-cmdexe.html

Lol, this really is an overkill. I think I'll just learn some language suitable to create light-weight .exe files over time, and pack it up.

There's a way how to make arc work by itself. There's an environment variable PATHEXT used for running commands without extension. If we convince user to put .php in it and associate *.php files with PHP interpreter then we can put this file in bin\:

<?php
include dirname(__FILE__)."/../scripts/arcanist.php";

It's quite involved but it still seems better than EXE file. We can use arc.bat as fallback.

Hm, I think we can condense both into something like a arc intall-win command. The environment can be set with [[http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/12153/SetEnv|SetEnv.exe]] and the association...
I don't remember how to do the latter but it should be doable from CLI (hack ourselves a phpassoc.reg in the worst case). Ok, finding PHP on PATH to do it automatically could be a problem, since we do not have which php like UNIX nor getenv('php.home') like Java.

I had fun doing the exe though :P

We can use where php on Windows.

... arc install-win, I'm on the way!