Visual Studio SFDX Code Setup on Windows

Having used a mac for a couple decades (and love using it).. keeps you away from the old (and some new) "aargh" moments in windows. However recently I decided to "also" use windows in parallel. (note: Can't set my mac aside.)

But then came some quick challenges to setup VS Code and get started with Salesforce. Here's a synopsis..

1. If you don't have admin rights on windows .. tough luck. You need to have those in order to proceed.

2. If you cannot get Oracle JDK (note JDK and not JRE) then get it from one of the fully supported communities by Salesforce from Salesforce Java Setup. 

3. Setup JAVA_HOME, However if you cannot set up due to any reason, then SFDX can be directed to work with your JDK in the next step. Make sure that JDK is in your PATH (regardless).

4. Download and install Visual Studio Code and the Salesforce Extension Pack. If you haven't enabled JAVA_HOME then set VS Code environment parameter File > Preferences> Settings > {Search Apex} 

Set Salesforcedx-vscode-apex › Java: Home  to the appropriate JDK path example : C:\\Java\\Zulu11\\

5. Restart VS Code. Make sure no other alerts are showing up. Update to latest packages/extensions.

6. Start setting up your SFDX Project .. 

6.a SFDX: Create Project with Manifest

6.b Authorize Org

6.c Retreive source from Org

7. If you get a localhost error during step 6, you will need to add an HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY environment variables by following steps from Salesforce CLI Env variables OR Salesforce CLI Env variables for proxy.