Behind The Proxy On Windows

In a corporate environment is quite common that users are behind proxy servers that need authorization. How/What to setup so your program can connect to the internet?

Even I have setup proxy setting ("start ms-settings:") in Windows system, there are some program, that did not recognize.

MS Store problem

Strangely some times MS Store is not able to work with/behind proxy. My solution is to open terminal and run:

netsh winhttp set proxy 10.10.10.10:3128

and run MS store from terminal:

start ms-windows-store:

Opensource / Environment

Other problem is that for most of the opensource tools like git, curl, wget, python use the "linux way" - rely on environment variables line https_proxy and http_proxy.

You can set it in command line with:

SET https_proxy=http://username:password@host:port

or put to permanently to user environment variables.

Problem could be that permanently storing this setting could expose your password, so I do not recommend it. So I decided to create batch file that can help me to make this setting more securely.

Problem was that I did not for way, how to enter password without exposing it just with windows batch command. So I decided to use python for asking password. My final batch script set_proxy.bat looks like this:

@echo off

python -c "import getpass; print(getpass.getpass('Enter Proxy Password:'))" >%temp%\tmpFile
SET /p password= < %temp%\tmpFile
DEL %temp%\tmpFile
IF "%password%" == "" GOTO SKIP_PROXY
SET https_proxy=http://%USERNAME%:%password%@10.10.10.10:3128
:SKIP_PROXY

As username it use windows environment variable USERNAME e.g. login name.

If you run this script in terminal, the setting https_proxy is valid in the current terminal window, so if you close it, this information will not be available/usable for other program.