Chapter 1: Getting started with the new Windows Terminal
At the Build 2019 conference, Microsoft made an exciting announcement: Windows 10 was getting a brand new command-line terminal! Custom built for the command prompt, PowerShell, and the Windows Subsystem for Linux, this new terminal promised to bring a modern, configurable, and open source command-line experience. In May 2020, Microsoft released the 1.0 version of the new Windows Terminal.
Windows Terminal is a separate application from the old Windows command line. This approach allows both terminals to live side by side, and enables Microsoft to rapidly release new features for Windows Terminal without endangering the backward compatibility of the old terminal.
By the end of this chapter, we will be up and running with Windows Terminal, having covered the following topics:
- Why a new terminal?
- The modern foundations of Windows Terminal
- Installing Windows Terminal
- Launching Windows Terminal
We'll cover why Windows needed a new terminal at all, how this new terminal is radically different from the old one, and take our first steps to download, install, and launch it.
