Windows Command Line
Insights from the teams behind Windows Terminal, PowerToys, WinGet, and WSL
Latest posts
Windows Terminal Preview 1.5 Release
We're back with another Windows Terminal release! Windows Terminal has moved to version 1.4 and includes the features described in the 1.4 release blog post. Windows Terminal Preview has moved to version 1.5 and includes the features described below. You can download both versions from the Microsoft Store or from the GitHub releases page. Let's dive into what's new! Full hyperlink support We have improved the hyperlink functionality to automatically detect links inside your terminal. These links are clickable and will open in your default browser using Ctrl+Click. Audible bell 🔔 Windows Terminal now support...
Distro installation added to WSL –install in Windows 10 insiders preview build 20246
We've added automatic distro installation to in Windows 10 insiders preview build 20246! This means that installing WSL is now easier than ever, as now when you run all the necessary components that you need for WSL will be automatically enabled, including your specific Linux distro of choice. How to use this new feature We announced that our goal with this feature is to make installing WSL as easily as possible back in BUILD 2020. With automatic distro installation, you can now have a full WSL install on your machine in a matter of minutes just by running one command: . We've also added some additional fe...
Windows Terminal Tips and Tricks
Windows Terminal comes with a lot of features that allow you to customize it and interact with it in a way that feels most comfortable to you. Let's run through some tips and tricks that could help you set up your terminal in a way that's perfect for you. At the time of this blog post, Windows Terminal is on version 1.3 and Windows Terminal Preview is on version 1.4. On first launch When you first install Windows Terminal, you will be greeted with a Windows PowerShell prompt. Windows Terminal ships with Windows PowerShell, Command Prompt, and Azure Cloud Shell profiles by default. In addition to these profiles...
What’s new in the Windows Subsystem for Linux – September 2020
This blog post highlights the WSL updates being made over the past few months, in addition to some sneak previews of our upcoming features and future plans. WSL 2 support is now available in Windows 10 version 1903 and 1909 We've heard feedback on how many users have enjoyed using WSL 2 and have made WSL 2 available to more Windows users with this backport. Customers running Windows 10 version 1903 and 1909 can now enjoy faster file system performance, 100% system call compatibility, and be able to use Docker Desktop with the WSL2-based engine. Read more about these updates, including how to ensure you...
Windows Terminal Preview 1.4 Release
Welcome to another release of Windows Terminal Preview and Windows Terminal! Windows Terminal Preview is now on version 1.4 and will have the new features listed below. Windows Terminal has moved to version 1.3 and will have all the features from our previous preview release. You can download both of these builds from the Microsoft Store as well as from the GitHub releases page. Let's check out what's new! Jump list You can now launch Windows Terminal Preview with a specific profile from the start menu or task bar! 👉 Note: Icons in settings.json must be written as Windows-style file paths in order for them...
Windows Package Manager Preview (v0.2.2521)
We have been humbled by all the positive support for the Windows Package Manager. You have taken us from zero to over one thousand packages in six months. This is an amazing start to the beginning of an open Windows catalog. Thank you! Our newest feature is support for installing Apps from the Microsoft Store. Yes, you read that correctly. Our goal is to make it easier to install software on Windows. We also recently released tab completion in PowerShell, and a feature toggle. As we work towards building our 1.0 version I wanted to share the next few features along the roadmap. Our immediate focus is on rounding...
Access Linux filesystems in Windows and WSL 2
Starting with Windows Insiders preview build 20211, WSL 2 will be offering a new feature: . This new parameter allows a physical disk to be attached and mounted inside WSL 2, which enables you to access filesystems that aren’t natively supported by Windows (such as ext4). So, if you’re dual booting with Windows & Linux using different disks, you can now access your Linux files from Windows! Getting started To mount a disk, open a PowerShell window with administrator privileges and run: To list the available disks in Windows, run: To unmount and detach the disk from WSL 2, run The disks paths are a...
Building Windows Terminal with WinUI
WinUI and Windows Terminal have a strong relationship that goes back to the origins of Windows Terminal. This blog post goes into the history and architecture of how these two technologies came together. History The history of WinUI and Windows Terminal goes back to December 2017. This was around the time the first prototyping of the application that would become Windows Terminal began. We, as the Windows Terminal team, had just started getting conpty into a place that was good enough to be useful as a translation layer between the console and a terminal application. We knew that we wanted to have conpty be abl...
Windows Terminal Preview 1.3 Release
We are back with another release for Windows Terminal and Windows Terminal Preview! This release adds all of the 1.2 features into Windows Terminal and introduces new features described below for Windows Terminal Preview 1.3. Both builds of Windows Terminal can be installed from the Microsoft Store or from the GitHub releases page. Let's check out what's new this month! Command palette The command palette is finally here! This new feature allows you to search through all of the commands available to you in Windows Terminal, similar to the one found in Visual Studio Code. You can invoke the command palette by ty...