Windows Command Line

Bash in Windows Insider build 15002 – many fixes but a couple of bugs!

January 9, 2017 Jan 9, 2017 01/9/17

Rich Turner

[Update 2017-02-07] Note that both of the two issues noted below have been fixed in more recent Insider builds Windows Insider build #15002 started shipping to Windows Insider Fast Ring users today, January 9th 2017. As is often the case in software development, after many teams have been beavering-away on their features for several ...

Rumors of Cmd’s death have been greatly exaggerated

January 4, 2017 Jan 4, 2017 01/4/17

Rich Turner

This post is in response to a story published on December 6th 2016 by ComputerWorld titled "Say goodbye to the MS-DOS command prompt" and its follow-up article "Follow-up: MS-DOS lives on after all". These "stories" were subsequently picked up by Business Insider and Life Hacker among others and fueled a number of concerned Tweets some of ...

Do not change Linux files using Windows apps and tools

November 17, 2016 Nov 17, 2016 11/17/16

Rich Turner

Update - May 2019 Windows 10 version 1903 has now been released and allows an important update to WSL that allows Windows applications and tools to access Linux files directly. To do this, WSL hosts a new 9P fileserver, which exposes distro filesystems to Windows apps and tools via ! You can read all about the feature in the blog post "What...

More easily invoke Windows apps and tools from Bash on Windows

November 10, 2016 Nov 10, 2016 11/10/16

Rich Turner

Along with support for ifconfig & network connection enumeration, Windows 10 Insider Build 14965 delivers a small but important change was made which will enable you more easily invoke Windows tools & applications from within Bash: Your Windows user environment path is now appended to the WSL path by default. This means you can now ...

ifconfig and network connection enumeration support in Windows 10 Insider build 14965

November 10, 2016 Nov 10, 2016 11/10/16

Rich Turner

Enable network connection enumeration is currently the most-requested idea in our command-line User Voice. Or at least it was, until Windows 10 Insider build #14965 was released, which support for network connection enumeration: Below is a screenshot of Bash on Windows running ifconfig: (image) This new feature should unblock ...

WSL adds Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial support

October 19, 2016 Oct 19, 2016 10/19/16

Rich Turner

Not only does Windows 10 Insider build #14951 introduce Bash Windows interop, it also delivers support for Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial). While many of our more intrepid early-adopters have manually upgraded their Ubuntu 14.04 instances to Ubuntu 16.04, as of Windows 10 Insider build #14951, if you clean-install a new Linux instance or uninstall and...

Interop between Windows and Bash

October 19, 2016 Oct 19, 2016 10/19/16

Rich Turner

Note: Also be sure to read the follow-up to this post that covers a subsequent improvement in that you no longer have to specify the absolute path to Windows executables if they exist on your path! Content below updated to reflect this change! Windows 10 Insider build #14951 has just landed and includes a very exciting new feature that ...

WSL adds inotify & filesystem change notification support

October 7, 2016 Oct 7, 2016 10/7/16

Rich Turner

(image) Over the last few weeks, the Windows Subsystem for Linux team have been cranking away, fixing lots of issues, completing several scenarios that we were unable to complete before shipping Windows 10 Anniversary Update, and adding support for new capabilities that light-up additional tools and scenarios. A key capability that many ...

24-bit Color in the Windows Console!

September 22, 2016 Sep 22, 2016 09/22/16

Rich Turner

One of the most frequent requests we receive is to increase the number of colors that the Windows Console can support. We love nothing more than to deliver features you ask for! But rather than just add a few more colors, or limit our console to a mere 256 colors, in Windows 10 Insiders Build #14931,  we've updated the Windows Console to ...

Hanselman takes a tour around Bash on Windows

July 1, 2016 Jul 1, 2016 07/1/16

Rich Turner

If you're anything like me, you're already overloaded with work/studies & life, and there's just never enough time to go and dig into all the awesome new open-source projects, cool new tools, exciting new languages & platforms, and any amount of other technology that appears almost hourly these days. Wouldn't it be great if someone ...