Windows Terminal 1.0

Kayla Cinnamon

Last year at Build 2019, we first announced the Windows Terminal. Since then, we have been working with the community to create a wonderful terminal experience while still being a preview product.

Here we are at Build 2020 and we are so excited to share with you our latest announcements!

Build 2020

Windows Terminal 1.0

We are incredibly proud to announce the release of Windows Terminal 1.0! Windows Terminal has come a long way since its announcement at Microsoft Build 2019. You can download Windows Terminal from the Microsoft Store or from the GitHub releases page. Windows Terminal will have monthly updates, starting in July 2020.

Image terminal 1 0

Windows Terminal Preview

We are also launching a preview channel of Windows Terminal. If you are someone who likes to be involved with the development of Windows Terminal and use the latest features as soon as they are developed, this is the channel for you! You can download Windows Terminal Preview from the Microsoft Store or from the GitHub releases page. Windows Terminal Preview will have monthly updates, starting in June 2020.

Image terminal preview

Documentation Website

After you have installed Windows Terminal, you may want to learn how to get the most out of your new development tool. We have just launched the Windows Terminal documentation site, which provides details about all of the settings and features the terminal has to offer, as well as some tutorials to get you started on customizing your terminal. You can find all of the Windows Terminal documentation at aka.ms/terminal-docs.

Top Features

Windows Terminal is full of features that improve your workflow and give you a wide variety of customization options to give you the best experience. Here’s an overview of some of our fan-favorite features.

Tabs and Panes

Windows Terminal allows you to run any command line application inside tabs and panes. You can create profiles for each of your command line applications and open them side-by-side for a seamless workflow. Each of your profiles can be uniquely customized to your liking. Additionally, the terminal will automatically create profiles for you if you have Windows Subsystem for Linux distributions or additional PowerShell versions installed on your machine.

Image panes

GPU Accelerated Rendering

Windows Terminal utilizes the GPU to render its text. This provides a much faster experience when using the command line. This renderer also provides support for Unicode and UTF-8 characters. This gives you the opportunity to use the terminal in a variety of languages while also displaying all of your favorite emojis. 😉 Lastly, we have included our newest font, Cascadia Code, inside the Windows Terminal package. The default font is set to Cascadia Mono, which is the font variant that does not include programming ligatures. For additional variants of the Cascadia Code font, head over to the Cascadia Code GitHub repo.

Image acrylic emoji

Customization Options

Windows Terminal is full of settings that provide an unlimited amount of customizations. You can have acrylic backgrounds and background images with unique color schemes and custom fonts for your own personalized experience. You can also add custom key bindings to help you feel more at home. Additionally, each profile is customizable to match the workflow you need, whether it be on Windows, WSL, or even SSH!

Fan-Favorite Community Contributions

Some of the coolest features in Windows Terminal were contributed by community members on GitHub. The first we would like to call out is background image support. Summon528 wrote the functionality for Windows Terminal to support both gifs and images in the background of the text window. This is by far one of our most used features.

Image background image 1 0

Another fan favorite is the retro terminal effect setting. Ironyman added support for glowing text and scan lines within the text buffer, thus providing that feeling of using a classic CRT machine. The team never anticipated this feature coming through on GitHub, but it was so good that we just had to include it inside the terminal.

Image retro 1 0

Top Contributors for Windows Terminal 1.0

Windows Terminal would not be where it is now without the help of our community. We would like to acknowledge those who have made a large impact on bringing Windows Terminal to 1.0.

🏆 j4james

🏆 mkitzan

🏆 pi1024e

🏆 greg904

🏆 mcpiroman

🏆 lhecker

🏆 skyline75489

🏆 ironyman

🏆 summon528

🏆 mikemaccana

🏆 egmontkob

🏆 jsoref

🏆 german-one

🏆 dlong11

🏆 …and many more!

We have had hundreds of contributors and we wish we could list all of them above! We’d like to especially thank them for all their help and we couldn’t do it without them!

What’s Next

We are actively working on new features that will appear in the Windows Terminal Preview release in June. If you’d like to join the fun and help contribute to Windows Terminal, there are many issues labeled “Help Wanted” on our GitHub repo! We will shortly be publishing our roadmap for Windows Terminal 2.0 on GitHub, so be sure to keep an eye out. If you’re curious about what we’re actively working on, our milestones will give you a good idea of where we’re headed. 😊

Cheers!

We hope you enjoy Windows Terminal 1.0 as well as our new Windows Terminal Preview and the aka.ms/terminal-docs site. If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to reach out to Kayla Cinnamon on Twitter (@cinnamon_msft). If you find any bugs or would like to file a feature request, please file a new issue on GitHub. If you’d like to read more about the developer tool announcements made at Build 2020, head over to Kevin Gallo’s blog post. We can’t wait to continue working with the community and developing new features to continue making Windows Terminal a great tool for developers!

41 comments

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  • Haipeng Fan 0

    Hi, how can I install it on my windows server 2016?

    • Emmanuel Adebiyi 0

      You can get the MSIX on the repo’s release page. Better yet, check out this link to the latest build.

      • Brent Durling 0

        Unfortunately I am not able to install this on Server 2019 (up-to-date).

        A Prerequisite for an install could not be satisfied.
        Windows cannot install package Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.0.1401.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe because this package is not
        compatible with the device. The package requires OS version 10.0.18362.0 or higher on the Windows.Mobile device
        family. The device is currently running OS version 10.0.17763.1217.

        • christopher.angelowork@gmail.com 0

          I have the same issue/error message on Windows Server 2019 (Build 17763.1217, May 12th, 2020).

          I also have a similar issue on my Win10 workstation. Admittedly, it’s still on 1709, but that’s outside my control.

          Manually downloading the MSIX and running it outputs the error “The .msixbundle is not supported. To resolve this error, update to Windows 10 1809 (or later) or rebuild the app bundle as .appxbundle.”.

          Trying to install the package through chocolatey gives similar output “ERROR: This package requires at least Windows 10 version 1903/OS build 18362.x.”

          For those of us that are stuck on our slightly outdated, but still supported OSes along and some orgs locking down of the Microsoft Store, it would be awesome if there was a standalone MSI for future releases.

  • Richard Deeming 0

    I’ve just uninstalled RC2 (v0.11.1333.0) and downloaded a fresh copy from the Microsoft Store. It’s still RC2, and there are no updates available.

    Guess the release hasn’t fully finished yet?

    • David De Sloovere 0

      You can use the new Windows Package Manager to install v1

      • Apεх 0

        Very happy it has been released into a stable version, got it installed on many of my workstations.

        I had some problems with this version installing it kept pulling up errors, had to format and update windows to get it working, not sure what caused it.

        Kind regards, Nathan.

  • MgSam 0

    Will it be included in Windows at some point? If not, it really limits the usefulness, IMO.

    • Diego 0

      I hope not!
      Deploying with windows will slow down the release of new features.
      it is already available on windows store, just a few clicks away from you!

      • Tribu Soft 0

        I totaly agree, and its really simple to just acces the store and just download it.
        We want fast and stable updates! 🙂

        Regards
        Hitta SMS lån

      • joey caero 0

        It’s true it would slow down the release of new features, but linux / macOS ship with very nice terminals, so why not windows? The features of this terminal are already exceptional.

        edit: Being able to remote in to a windows computer and run command “wt” has value imo

  • Christopher Glover 0

    Can I please have that wavy flag background!? Its so beautiful, the windows flag waiving so majestically.

  • Mark Blackie 0

    I downloaded the official 1.0 release from github. Unfortunately, it will not launch. I am seeing the same issue as shown here: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/6010

  • J S 0

    Strange that it doesn’t come with the default settings with all the new themes.. You have to alt click on the down arrow and somehow save that content to the settings file. Also when you paste a unicode character like the unicode snowman ☃ in powershell, it appears as a questionmark, but once it’s “run” inside quotes it looks like it’s supposed to.

  • Urgen Dorjee 0

    Greetings!,

    I have been tried to search for this colorful glassy theme/color scheme to customize with my Windows Terminal Version: 1.0.1401.0 but I won’t find it. May I know where to get this glassy theme .json settings.

    There should have settings option to customize the terminal rather going through json file to makes changes, which is very counterintuitive!!

    Thanks!

  • Tim McGookey 0

    Two things:

    1. Congratulations on shipping 1.0 guys! I’m still pestering my IT department to roll out 1903 so I can start using Terminal on my work machine in addition to at home.
    2. Kayla, your machine’s name is absolutely inspired. Well done.
  • Christopher Glover 0

    @windows terminal team, is there any chance of making Edit work in the new terminal on x64 architecture? I miss edit.

  • Nkama Geraldo Lumeka 0

    Hello,
    How do i enable transparency?

    • emarsk 0

      You enable it by reading the docs (linked in the post).
      Look for “acrylic”.

      • Nkama Geraldo Lumeka 0

        Arigatou “emarsk” 👍

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