Windows Command Line
Insights from the teams behind Windows Terminal, PowerToys, WinGet, and WSL
Latest posts
Windows Package Manager 1.1
I’m excited to share some great news. We’re releasing Windows Package Manager 1.1. We’ve squashed some annoying bugs and added some highly anticipated features. The Windows Package Manager is being released to Windows 10 (build 1809 and newer) and Windows 11 as an automatic update via the Microsoft Store. The moment we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. Grab yourself a cup of coffee (or any other favorite beverage). Don’t worry; I’ll wait. Cheers! Client The team has been busy over the last few months making improvements and adding new features. The most notable new feature is access to apps in the Micros...
Windows Terminal Preview 1.11 Release
Windows Terminal Preview 1.11 is here! Come check out what's new in our open source command line tool.
Install WSL with a single command now available in Windows 10 version 2004 and higher
In the latest Windows Insider Preview builds, you can install everything you need to run WSL just by running . We’re excited to announce that this functionality is now officially backported to Windows 10 version 2004 and higher, which will make installing WSL on those builds much easier! Using The process to set up WSL was previously too complicated, involving turning on multiple settings and installing multiple packages. We’ve simplified the process down to just one command, simply open a command prompt window with admin privileges and run . Once you hit enter, the process will automatically enable the WSL ...
Build and Debug C++ with WSL 2 Distributions and Visual Studio 2022
This post is written by Erika Sweet, a Program Manager on Microsoft's C++ Team. Visual Studio 2022 introduces a native WSL 2 toolset for C++ development. This toolset is available now in Visual Studio 2022 version 17.0 Preview 2. WSL 2 is the new, recommended version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) architecture that provides better Linux file system performance, GUI support, and full system call compatibility. Visual Studio’s WSL 2 toolset allows you to build and debug C++ code on WSL 2 distros from Visual Studio without ever adding an SSH connection. You can already build and debug C++ code on WSL 1 d...
Windows Terminal Preview 1.10 Release
It's Windows Terminal release day! This release introduces Windows Terminal Preview to version 1.10 and Windows Terminal will be updated to version 1.9 soon. Windows Terminal will include all of the features listed in the 1.9 blog post except for the default terminal setting and the ability to edit actions using the settings UI. We are keeping these features inside Windows Terminal Preview in order to identify and fix remaining bugs. Now let's jump into what's new with version 1.10! Command palette button in dropdown We noticed that the Feedback button inside the dropdown menu was hardly used and we figured thi...
Windows Package Manager 1.0
We started a journey to build a native package manager for Windows 10 when we announced the Windows Package Manager preview at Microsoft Build 2020. We released the project on GitHub as an open-source collaborative effort and the community engagement has been wonderful to experience! Here we are today at Microsoft Build 2021… We are excited to announce the release of Windows Package Manager 1.0! Windows Package Manager 1.0 Client The winget client is the main tool you will use to manage packages on your machine. The image below displays executed in Windows Terminal via PowerShell. You can see the list of ava...
Windows Terminal Preview 1.9 Release
Happy Microsoft Build 2021 and happy 2nd birthday to Windows Terminal! This release introduces version 1.9 to Windows Terminal Preview and migrates Windows Terminal to version 1.8. As always, you can install both builds from the Microsoft Store as well as from the GitHub releases page. Let's get into what's new! Default terminal You can now set Windows Terminal Preview as your default terminal emulator on Windows! This means that any command line application will launch inside your selected terminal emulator (i.e. double click on PowerShell and it will open inside Windows Terminal Preview by default 😊). This se...
Windows Package Manager v0.3 Preview
We have been hard at work building new experimental features for the Windows Package Manager. We have just released the Windows Package Manager v0.3 Preview. I would like to share the first major feature to exit experimental status. I also have the privilege of announcing support for Group Policy. What's New Introducing Import I have been through several Windows 10 environments over the last year. It is hard to describe how much pleasure I felt with the simplicity of as I set a new build up so I can become productive. Things have just gotten better with the Windows Package Manager v0.3 Preview. Now I use , an...
The Initial Preview of GUI app support is now available for the Windows Subsystem for Linux
A year ago at BUILD 2020 we introduced our goal to bring Linux GUI applications to the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) to run Linux GUI applications. We are proud to announce the first preview of this highly anticipated and open source feature! We’ve given this feature the nickname: “WSLg”. Please check out the video below or keep reading to see what you can use this feature for, how it works, and how to install it. What can I use GUI application support for? WSL lets you run a Linux environment, and up until this point has focused on enabling command line tools utilities and applications. GUI app suppo...