Microsoft has announced a major update for the Windows Console Host environment that introduces some of the best features found in the Windows Terminal app, now built-in and available to use via the core Windows Command Prompt.
"The Windows Console is part of the open-source Windows Terminal project, receiving updates from its open-source community. With this release, we are bringing all the changes from the open-source project back into Windows," Microsoft says.
Such improvements include the ability for the Command Prompt to show graphics such as sixel images, clipboard enhancements, bolt font rendering, and better scrolling performance. These console host improvements will come in handy on PCs that don't have Terminal installed, including in recovery environments.
The Command Prompt app itself isn't getting support for things like tabs, that's still a Windows Terminal exclusive feature. It's the engine, the console host, that's gaining improvements, which is a long time coming. Microsoft says "Most of these updates come from Windows Insiders and community contributors, whose names can be found in the Windows Terminal blog posts on the Windows Command Line Blog."
You can check out the full list of changes coming to the console host on Windows 11 below:
- Optional new Atlas/Direct3D rendering path (UseDx): available behind a registry key (HKCU\Console, DWORD UseDx=1). (GitHub #19848)
- Regular Expression search: the Find dialog now supports regular expressions. (GitHub #17316)
- Bold font rendering: the original rendering engine now supports bold fonts. (GitHub #19441)
- Paste reliability improvement: resolves a longstanding issue where some pasted characters could be dropped when the output code page couldn’t represent them. (GitHub #19511)
- Accessibility improvements: rewritten legacy MSAA integration and parts of UI Automation support. (GitHub #19344)
- Snap-on-input behavior: now only enabled by default when VT processing is enabled.
- More reliable snap on input/output in WSL and PowerShell. (GitHub #19247, #17453)
- Clipboard enhancements: supports OSC 52 (Manipulate Selection Data) for writing selection data to the clipboard. (GitHub #18949)
- Graphical content: adds support for Sixel-based images.
- Alt + Numpad + clipboard text fix: avoids mistranslating Codepage 936 text when generating Alt + Numpad events for clipboard content. (GitHub #17635)
- Performance: scrolling text performance improvements (up to ~10x in some scenarios). (GitHub #16333)
- Rectangular selection: fixes rectangular copy via Edit > Mark. (GitHub #16197)
- We have also changed how the pop-up dialogs look inside the console to improve their compatibility with screen readers, assistive technologies, and other terminal emulators. This includes the F7 history window as well as the F2 and F4 line editing windows.
These improvements are now rolling out in preview for Windows Insiders in the Canary Channel, and will likely make their way to everyone in the coming months.
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