Table of Contents
Shell/Terminals
Windows
Batch
The Windows batch shell, commonly referred to as cmd, cmd.exe or the command prompt
Batch specific details:
- variables are enclosed by
%
signs (e.g.%CI_DIR%
) - NUL is the batch equivalent to the UNIX /dev/null
- the
rem
keyword is a way to comment out code
Powershell
Windows PowerShell is a scripting engine .DLL that's embedded into multiple hosts. The most common hosts you'll start are the interactive command-line powershell.exe and the Interactive Scripting Environment powershell_ise.exe.
Powershell is the modern Windows command prompt. Usage is similar to cmd, but with a few key differences. Some UNIX commands are also supported, such as ls
.
Powershell specific details:
- system set environment variables must have a
$env:
prefix. Sometimes, variables must also be enclosed by quotation marks to properly function out-null
is the Powershell variant of NUl or /dev/null- to call a cmd script from Powershell use:
cmd /c “insert script or command here”
Environment Variables
Windows Terminal
“The Windows Terminal is a modern, fast, efficient, powerful, and productive terminal application for users of command-line tools and shells like Command Prompt, PowerShell, and WSL. Its main features include multiple tabs, panes, Unicode and UTF-8 character support, a GPU accelerated text rendering engine, and custom themes, styles, and configurations.”
From the Microsoft Store
Installation
The Windows Terminal is not part of a default Windows 10 installation (but in Windows 11). The easiest way to install it, is with the Microsoft Store. Search for “Terminal” and the first hit should it be.
Configuration/Settings
The Windows Terminal can be configured very extensively, and it would go way too far to explain every option. I want to introduce only a few important settings.
Open the settings tab by clicking on the down arrow next to the “new-tab-plus” symbol.
- Defautl profile when opening a new tab: In section “Start” direct the first setting on the top. You can select a profile on the dropdown menu.