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Windows Command Line
Windows Terminal, Console and Command Line, Windows Subsystem for Linux, WSL, Windows Package Manager
Latest posts

Windows Subsystem for Linux out of Beta!
We're excited to announce that in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (FCU) due to ship in fall 2017, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) will no longer be a beta feature and will become a fully supported Windows feature. Early adopters on the Windows Insider program will notice that WSL is no longer marked as a beta feature as of Insider build 16251. This will be great news for those who've held-back from employing WSL as a mainline toolset: You'll now be able to leverage WSL as a day-to-day developer toolset, and become ever more productive when building, testing, deploying, and managing your apps and systems on Win...

SUSE’s Linux distros for WSL now available in the Windows Store
We’re excited to announce that you can now download & install openSUSE Leap 42 and SLES 12 via the Windows Store RIGHT NOW! **Important Note:**** You will need to be running **any Windows 10 Insider build >= #16215 and have the WSL optional component enabled. We’ve been excitedly waiting for this moment ever since we announced that you’d be able to install and run multiple distro’s side-by-side on WSL and follows-on from our announcement last week that Ubuntu is now available for download from the Windows Store. This announcement finally delivers on our commitment that, one day, we’d be able to run more ...

Ubuntu now available from the Windows Store!
Today, we’re excited to announce that Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux Distro is now available in the Windows Store and can be downloaded and installed on any Windows 10 Insider build >= #16215! Note: Because Windows 10 Insider builds are essentially weekly snapshots of the next version of Windows 10 as it’s being built, this feature will eventually become available to anyone who runs Windows 10 Fall Creators Update or later. I first mentioned that we were working to enable you to find and download Linux distro’s via the Windows Store via this blog post. There are several benefits in replacing our existing inst...

Understanding Windows Console Host Settings
Welcome to the first of several posts that describe some of the inner workings of the Windows Console. This post was written by Craig Loewen (our awesome 2017 summer intern), and Paul Campbell (SDE on Windows Console, Cmd, & Bash on Windows). Settings in the Windows Console Host can be a bit tricky to understand. This is mostly because the settings system evolved over the course of decades. Settings are persisted to/from a variety of locations depending on how the Windows Console Host was invoked. The hierarchy of loaded settings Where a Console's settings are loaded-from and/or persisted-to is dec...

Developer Mode no longer required for Windows Subsystem for Linux
As of Windows 10 Insider build >= 16215, you no longer have to enable Developer Mode (Settings -> Update & Security -> For Developers) in order to run Bash on Ubuntu on Windows! Why? This restriction was first put in place to safeguard non-technical users from inadvertently using a feature that was, at the time, very new and not yet widely exercised. Over the last year, two major releases, and many updates later, we're now much more confident of WSL's safety and utility and want to enable more users to take advantage of this valuable toolset. You will still need to manually enable the Windows Subsystem f...

Great Bash Intro Video from Build 2017
In case you've not seen it yet, Bash/WSL team members Yosef, Paul & Ben, along with Sean Larkin (WebPack) & Ken Wheeler (FormidableLabs) talk about what Bash/WSL is, what it's for, and why it's an essential tool to them! Be sure to watch, and comment below and/or hit us up on Twitter if you have questions! Yosef (@yosefdurr) Paul (@paulcam206) Ben (@benhillis) Rich (@richturn_ms)

Will Linux distros run on Windows 10 S?
Will Linux distros run on Windows 10 S? Many people have asked "You just announced that Linux distro's are coming to the Windows Store - will they run on Windows 10 S?" The answer is No! Just because an "app" comes from the Windows Store does NOT automatically mean that it's safe & suitable for running in Windows 10 S. There are some apps that are not allowed to run on Windows 10 S, including all command-line apps, shells and Consoles. Read on for more background & info... What is Windows 10 S? A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft announced Windows 10 S - a new SKU of Windows which is "Streamlined f...

New distros coming to Bash/WSL via Windows Store
We're REALLY excited about this announcement and think many of you will be too ;) On May 11th 2017, during Microsoft's Build conference keynote, Terry Myerson (EVP for Windows & Devices Group) made several announcements about the Windows Subsystem for Linux: And at OSCON 2017 I delivered a talk on the architecture and history of Bash/WSL, and outlined these new features. Thanks to the great OSCON audience & attendees for all your great support & engagement :) These new features deliver several key benefits including: WSL was always designed to be distro-agnostic and this is the f...

Bash/WSL Insiders build now supports usb/serial comms and mounting removable storage & network shares
At the end the post announcing what's new in Bash/WSL in Win10 Creators Update, I stated: We continue to forge ahead with many planned improvements and exciting new features. Stay tuned for lots more exciting features coming in future releases of Windows 10: If you want to be among the first to access and experience improvements planned for the next Windows 10 release, be sure to sign up to the Windows Insider program and set your Windows Insider Update Ring to "Fast"! I wasn't kidding! ;) The first new post-Windows 10 CU Insiders builds were released over the last couple of weeks - build #16176 and #1618...