You might already know about Command Prompt and PowerShell, two command-line utilities that come with most versions of Windows. Terminal is different for multiple reasons, but primarily because it’s a single program that provides developers with quick access to those tools and more.
Windows Terminal Features
Terminal looks pretty basic at first glance, but there are a handful of features that set it apart from other Windows command-line tools:
Full screen mode Tabbed interface to open multiple instances of the tools Shortcut keys to quickly open new tabs Zoom with the mouse Unicode and UTF-8 character support permits the use of emoji and non-English characters GPU-accelerated text rendering engine Custom themes and styles can be created Stylus support Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), SSH, PowerShell, Command Prompt, and Azure Cloud Shell support
How to Use Windows Terminal
If you’re on Windows 11, there are several ways to open it:
Search for Terminal from the Start menu Trigger it from the Power User Menu (WIN+X) Use the Run dialog box with the wt or cmd command (it fully replaces Command Prompt in W11) Right-click an empty space in any folder, and choose Open in Terminal.
Windows 10 users need to follow these steps to download it:
Editing Windows Terminal Settings
Changing the settings for Terminal is easy: Use the down arrow at the top of the program, and then select Settings. There are a number of options you can customize there, like to switch to a different color scheme, edit how text looks, force Terminal to always stay on top of other windows, edit shortcuts, change the default starting directory, run as administrator automatically, and a lot more. To edit additional settings, select Open JSON file from the bottom of that screen. The file settings.json will open in your default text editor (likely Notepad, but you can use a different text editor if you want). Microsoft has directions for using the Settings JSON file. There are also example edits here.
Tips for Using Windows Terminal
The default shell is PowerShell, so every time you open Terminal, PowerShell will be the utility you see first (you can change this in the settings). This also means that the plus sign next to the tabs at the top of Terminal will always open PowerShell, regardless of the tool you’re currently using. There are shortcut keys you can use to quickly open an item from the menu. These are the default key bindings for running these actions:
Ctrl+Shift+1 opens Windows PowerShellCtrl+Shift+2 opens Command PromptCtrl+Shift+3 opens Azure Cloud ShellCtrl+Shift+F opens the find boxCtrl+, opens Settings
Use the Command Palette menu option (Ctrl+Shift+P) to see other shortcuts. Terminal requires Windows 10 version 18362.0 or higher. If you can’t install it, update Windows to the latest version.
