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How To Use Small Bit Of Toast On Windows Without WSL

Modified Micro:Bit Build Template For Windows
1 December 2025 by
How To Use Small Bit Of Toast On Windows Without WSL
All Things Toasty Software Ltd, Austin Welsh-Graham
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Small Bit of Toast, being a fork of the microbit-v2-samples repository from Lancaster University was a Linux focused tool, which is great until you remember that most of the word is still using Windows (other than all the enterprise infrastructure etc.,) This forces the user to try and deal what is usually a mess that is Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), and so instead changes have been made to give users insight onto how they can create Micro:bit projects on windows natively.


Start by cloning the Windows based repository

git clone https://github.com/AustinATTS/small-bit-of-toast-windows

This replaces the original build.sh script with a PowerShell equivalent (build.ps1), however the overall structure remains compatible with CODAL and the original Micro:bit build process.


The easiest way to install the required dependencies is by using a Windows package manager like Scoop. To do this run the following commands in PowerShell.

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Remote signed _Scope CurrentUser

Invoke-RestMethod -Uri https://get.scoop.sh | Invoke-Expression

Once scoop is installed you can install everything that the system relies on.

scoop install git
scoop bucket add extras
scoop install gcc-arm-none-eabi cmake python ninja

Scoop will automatically handle both the installation and the PATH configuration so you shouldn't have to deal with the Windows environment variables.


To then actually build your project you use the build.ps1 script which is the Windows-native alternative to the original bash script, however the behaviour is identical: it cleans the source directory, copies your program files, runs the build process, and gives you the hex file.

From any project folder containing your .cpp files, run:

..\build.ps1

This builds all the files in the current directory and outputs:

<folder-name>.hex

To build specific files:

..\build.ps1 main.cpp helpers.h helpers.cpp

This produces:

main.hex

You can also use the same method to build a hex file from any location as with the Linux version, a separate post will be made later to detail how to make the changes with PowerShell's syntax.

How To Use Small Bit Of Toast On Windows Without WSL
All Things Toasty Software Ltd, Austin Welsh-Graham 1 December 2025
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