Thanks Eclipse Crypto for the instructions on how to obtain the private key. I am still getting an error though. "unable to parse private key"
im using this format
./steemd --miner='["accountname","${WIFPRIVATEKEY}"]' --witness='"accountname"' --seed-node="52.38.66.234:2001" --mining-threads=2
Make sure you are disregarding the dollar sign and curly brackets so for example '["jookly","5... "]'.
If that doesnt work maybe try using a private key produced with the suggest_brain_wallet command.
Regarding some of the other comments in the thread why are windows users so entitled? Its a piece of piss to learn how to at least install ubuntu in a vm. If you give one flying fuck about the ideals of crypto you shouldnt be using that steeming (heh) shitpile of an os anyway.