We will start with the Windows Insider Program and start moving through rings until we reach everyone on Windows 11. Over the course of 2022, we are planning to make Windows Terminal the default experience on Windows 11 devices. This setting can be found in multiple places: inside the Developer settings page of Windows settings, inside Windows Terminal’s settings on the Startup page, and inside the Windows Console Host property sheet. On Windows 11, you are able to set Windows Terminal as your default experience. 💡 More information on the command line architecture in Windows can be found in this series of blog posts. Now, we are opening up the functionality to allow for other terminals to be set as default, including Windows Terminal. There were definitely third parties who hooked the OS to make it possible, but it was never truly supported. This means that shells such as Command Prompt and PowerShell have always opened inside the Windows Console Host.įor a long time, users have not been easily able to replace the console host. Starting from the dawn of Windows, the default terminal emulator has always been the Windows Console Host, conhost.exe.

What is a default terminal?Ī default terminal is the terminal emulator that launches by default when opening a command line application. Hey Windows Terminal fans! This month we are delivering a servicing release and the next feature release is scheduled for January, so we figured we’d write a blog post discussing Windows Terminal as the default command line experience on Windows and what our future plans are.

Windows terminal command