Windows Terminal is an all-new separate application designed by Microsoft. It comes with powerful and productive features designed for Windows user. In this article, we will talk more about Windows Terminal in details, catch us after the jump!
Contents
Why Windows Terminal?
Before starting the talk regarding Windows Terminal, let us first understand why it is even needed?
So, we have default command line available in all version of Windows operating system, and a few years back, Microsoft also added PowerShell to Windows client OS, it was first made available to Windows Server line.
Microsoft continued to enhance both Terminals for various purpose, but as the command-line Terminal was built a long time back in MS-DOS, hence keep on adding new features on an old module was not possible.
Therefore, Microsoft came up with a brand-new Terminal which offers many amazing features those were not possible in the older build of command line terminal.
Features of Windows Terminal:
The main features of Windows Terminal are multiple tabs, i.e. user can run various applications in different tabs in one single app. The numerous tab option allows end-user to open and run as many applications connected to different applications like command-line, PowerShell, Ubuntu on WSL, a Raspberry Pi via SSH, etc.
Accelerate DirectWrite/DirectX-based text rendering engine that includes CJK ideograms new font type, also known as a monospaced font, will be used to change the appearance of the Windows Terminal. Not only this, the font comes pre-loaded with programming ligatures apart from being open-source.
Other features include Unicode and UTF-8-character support, custom themes, styles, and multiple profiles. Rendering technology used to display is much faster and smooth when compared to the old Console’s GDI engine.
System requirements to Install Windows Terminal:
- Windows Terminal can be installed only n Windows 10, 1903 version and should be 10.0.18362.0 or later
- Make sure system is already running on Desktop Bridge Visual C++ v14 redistributable package
- A Microsoft account to sign in to Microsoft Store (optional)
How to install Windows Terminal 1.0 on PC?
Windows Terminal can install in 2 ways:
The first is easy, and however, for the second option, it may require more than a basic understanding of application installation from the GitHub repository.
- Using the Microsoft Store:
To start Windows Terminal installation process, PC must meet the above system requirement. Once all the above criteria are complete, we can follow the below steps to install.
- Go to Microsoft Store app on Windows 10
- Type Windows Terminal -> enter
- List of app options will pop-up, select Windows Terminal and click “Get.”
- The system will check Microsoft login (or can be skipped) and then it will be downloaded and installed
- Once the application is installed, the system will display a launch option -> click on “launch.”
- A command-line window will pop-up, and the user can use it along with default (old school) command-line application to execute commands
- PowerShell and SSH option are also available and can be used parallel to the command line. User can use a toggle option to select and run Terminal of your choice at one place
- By downloading and running executable file for Windows Terminal 1.0 from GitHub:
- Go to Microsoft Terminal GitHub page https://github.com/microsoft/terminal
- Make sure above system requirement is met and along with few more settings mentioned below should be met
- The developer options in Windows settings should be enabled
- Windows 10 SDK version 1903 must be install
- You must have a minimum version of Visual Studio 2019 is installed
- Also, workloads via Visual Studio Installer must be installed. If you are running Visual Studio 2019 version and above, on the launch of the application system will search for missing files and will try to download and add automatically like
- Desktop Development with C++
- Universal Windows Platform Development
- C++ (v142) Universal Windows Platform Tools
- Once pre-requisite ask are met, now it is time to create the build
- Build can be created using PowerShell or command line
- Building in PowerShell
Import-Module .\tools\OpenConsole.psm1
Set-MsBuildDevEnvironment
Invoke-OpenConsoleBuild- Building in Cmd
.\tools\razzle.cmd bcz
Being Windows Terminal an open-source application, user can download Windows Terminal repo from GitHub page above and can make changes to the code according to their requirement.
Windows Terminal can be used to run a wide range of applications like Command Prompt, Ubuntu, or even SSH connections to Azure or IoT devices. There is also an option to create different customized layout and theme and save it as profile to access it at later point of time.
The Terminal’s profiles feature used for each application/tool or shell to connect command prompt, PowerShell, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) or SSH connections to connect Azure, Cloud or IoT based devices remotely.
Different types of settings are saved in profiles, considering font style, glyphs, colour, background bur, theme, transparency level of the UI etc. There is also an option to create your customized profile by picking different available combinations and making them fully customized profile.
Benefits of Windows Terminal:
- Being Windows Terminal an open-source application, it offers comprehensive options for third party developer to create applications on top of Windows Terminal, which will later help Terminal user in the future course.
- User is not required to run multiple for each application like the command line, PowerShell, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) or SSH connection setup. These can be easily done using one single app
- Full support for GPU-based text rendering options, emoji, glyphs, and symbol support
- Wide range of tweaking options to change/modify feature according to taste
Why should we install Windows Terminal in Windows 10?
Windows Terminal is AIO (all in one) application packages to do multiple tasks at one place. Hence, it is not required to use various applications for a different job rather than it is doable in one app.
Windows Terminal 1.0 is the first iteration of Terminal kernel based on Linux. Microsoft is planning to bring the full version of Linux kernel to Windows 10 in a future release, and we can expect more robust features in Windows Terminal.
For now, this is all we have regarding Windows Terminal 1.0, do let us know what you feel about this brand new Terminal, in your comments below.
