Although trumpeted at a developer conference, Microsoft Windows Terminal is a step up from the usual management tools administrators use for day-to-day tasks.
Announced during Microsoft Build in May 2019 and released during Build 2020 in May 2020, Windows Terminal is a powerful and impressive open-source terminal that warrants closer inspection by IT professionals who find traditional command-line tools for Windows are missing.
Go back to basics: what are consoles, shells and terminals?
Some newcomers to the computer world might be confused by the terms console, shell and Terminal. The nomenclature comes from the early days of computing and some people will use them interchangeably, but it helps to know the terminology to keep everything clear.
FinishedI. Closest to the user is the terminal, which originated in mainframe terminology where the terminal – a physical keyboard and monitor – connected the user to the mainframe. Today, the terminal, more specifically the terminal emulator, is essentially a wrapper for the shell. A terminal can run multiple shells. The terminal does not do heavy work; it facilitates communication between the user and the hull. The terminal listens for keyboard input and sends it to the shell, then generates the shell response for the user.
Shell. The shell does the actual work derived from the terminal. It takes commands from the user and executes them. Examples of shells include PowerShell, Bash, and cmd.
Console. From the perspective of the Windows operating system, the console does the same job as a terminal, which is confusing. The Windows console has been around since the late 1980s, arriving with the Windows NT operating system.
Microsoft Windows Terminal Features
Windows Terminal version 1.0 included the following features:
- tab layout;
- smoother performance with GPU-accelerated rendering;
- a new monospaced font called Cascadia Code;
- many customization options;
- ability to open different shells such as Command Prompt, Azure Cloud Shell, PowerShell, and Windows Subsystem for Linux;
- multiple tabs to run multiple shells at the same time;
- ability to create shortcuts; and
- ability to create different profiles.
How Microsoft Windows Terminal Compares to Other Terminals
Several shell interfaces are available for different systems. The following table lists some alternatives to Microsoft Windows Terminal.
| Terminal | Supports | Developer | open-source |
| putty | Secure Copy Protocol, Secure Shell, Telnet, rlogin, raw socket connection | Simon Tatham | Yes |
| OpenSSH | Secure Copy Protocol, Secure Shell | OpenBSD Project | Yes |
| Hyper | Telnet, Secure Shell, modem, serial port | Hilgraeve | Nope |
| Terminal for macOS | Bash, Z shell | Apple | Nope |
| Windows Terminal | All the foregoing | Microsoft | Yes |
As the graphic indicates, Windows Terminal covers all the features found in other terminal applications.
Should you switch to Microsoft Windows Terminal?
There are several reasons why you should try Microsoft Windows Terminal, the main one being the extensive functionality that supports a wide range of protocols.
This version of this app follows Microsoft’s open source trend – .NET Core, Visual Studio Code and PowerShell are some of the most notable examples – which encourages users to provide feedback, suggest features and report bugs on the GitHub site. This is encouraging and shows Microsoft’s willingness to invest in a tool that caters to IT professionals and developers.
The open nature of the project shows which features have higher priority levels in the roadmap section and milestone release dates. All of these efforts show a significant amount of effort from Microsoft, which bodes well for the future of Windows Terminal.
Where can I find Microsoft Windows Terminal?
You can download Windows Terminal from the Microsoft Store on this link or on the GitHub of the project release section where Microsoft keeps stable and preview versions.
I recommend installing Windows Terminal through the Microsoft Store as this will automatically download new updates. For the same reason, installing Windows Terminal through the Microsoft Store is also recommended by Microsoft.
How to Open Windows Terminal in Windows 10?
After downloading Windows Terminal from the Microsoft Store, open it like you would any other app.
Windows Terminal looks like a mix of Windows Command Prompt and PowerShell – until you see the tabbed layout. You may also notice a slight change in the Terminal font, which is relatively new and called Cascadia Code.
Customizing the Windows Terminal
Windows Terminal provides many customization options in the global and profile settings of the settings.json case. Global settings affect the entire terminal window, regardless of what was selected with profile settings.
Some global settings include the ability to select a dark or light theme, configure the number of rows to scroll with the mouse wheel, an adjustable tab width mode, and auto-launch on startup.
Profile settings refer to the configuration of available shells available in the drop-down list. If you install Windows Subsystem for Linux, Windows will automatically create a profile for the installed Linux distribution.
Windows Terminal offers granular, profile-specific UI customizations based on your preferences, including cursor (shape, color, height) and font (face, size, thickness) settings. The JSON configuration file for Windows Terminal will store these settings in the section titled profiles.
One of the benefits of customizing these profiles is to use the SSH client in Windows 10 to set up automatic connection to frequently used servers or to quickly connect to other devices, such as routers and switches.
Get cutting-edge builds via Windows Terminal preview
Similar to Windows Insider, there is a Windows Terminal Preview channel for users who want to try out the latest features. Running this version comes with some risk as some features may not be fully developed, but there is the advantage of having more advanced features compared to version 1.0.
The developers release a new version every month available on the Microsoft Store under the name Windows Terminal Preview or from the releases section of the GitHub site. It is possible to install and use both the RTM version and Windows Terminal Preview, which can be useful if you want to test new features while continuing to use the stable version.
Windows Terminal 2.0 is coming in 2021
In line with its recent open source efforts and more transparency behind its product development, Microsoft has provided a roadmap for Windows Terminal 2.0 on this link. On this page, users can see which features have different priority levels – from zero for required to two for optional – to get an idea of what’s coming in version 2.0.
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