Multi-tab command prompt in Windows?

windows command-line tabs

169,418

Solution 1

Check out Console.

Console is a Windows console window enhancement. Console features include: multiple tabs, text editor-like text selection, different background types, alpha and color-key transparency, configurable font, different window styles

Solution 2

Sorry for the self-promotion, I'm the author of another Console Emulator, not mentioned here.

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ConEmu is opensource console emulator with tabs, which represents multiple consoles and simple GUI applications as one customizable GUI window.

Initially, the program was designed to work with Far Manager (my favorite shell replacement - file and archive management, command history and completion, powerful editor). But ConEmu can be used with any other console application or simple GUI tools (like PuTTY for example). ConEmu is a live project, open to suggestions.

A brief excerpt from the long list of options:

Use any font installed in the system, or copied to a folder of the program (ttf, otf, fon, bdf)
Run selected tabs as Administrator (Vista+) or as selected user
Windows 7 Jump lists and Progress on taskbar
Integration with DosBox (useful in 64bit systems to run DOS applications)
Smooth resize, maximized and fullscreen window modes
Scrollbar initially hidden, may be revealed by mouseover or checkbox in settings
Optional settings (e.g. pallette) for selected applications
User friendly text and block selection (from keyboard or mouse), copy, paste, text search in console
ANSI X3.64 and Xterm 256 color
Quake/Tilda style
Change cursor position in command prompt (cmd, powershell) with mouse click (build 120618+)
Works on Chinese editions of Windows :)

Far Manager users will acquire shell style drag-n-drop, thumbnails and tiles in panles, tabs for editors and viewers, true colors and font styles (italic/bold/underline).

Try it. You may read some comments on StackOverflow.

Solution 3

I realize this is 6 years after you posted the question. I've found PowerShell ISE to be an elegant solution.

There's a slight 2 second delay to start it up, but it's incredibly powerful and suitable as a tabbed command prompt in a Windows 7/8/10 environment.

It has a cleaner UI than many of the alternatives listed above, and it's built for PowerShell.

Solution 4

PromptPal is the best I have ever used.

Solution 5

I think PowerCmd is a nice multitab cmd prompt software as well. It is shareware and has all the features I expected.

You can get it from http://www.powercmd.com/

View more solutions

169,418

leeand00

Projects jobdb - Creator of Open Source Job Search Document Creator/Tracker http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a58/Maskkkk/c64nMe.jpg Received my first computer (see above) at the age of 3, wrote my first program at the age of 7. Been hooked on programming ever since.

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

leeand00 almost 2 years

What are the best (i.e. bug free) Multi-tab command prompts in Windows?

They have them for Linux but Windows never seems to come out with one.
- Admin about 13 years
  
  "but Windows never seems to come out with one." That's because the console subsystem is a second-class citizen in Windows, at least in terms of window interaction and UX.
- Admin about 13 years
  
  @afrazier I should would like to know why, it's so much more powerful than a GUI.
- Admin about 10 years
  
  Here's a thread on StackOverflow
- Admin over 4 years
  
  Windows Terminal is on preview and available now. I learned about options here that seems to have more features. microsoft.com/en-us/p/windows-terminal-preview/…
Nate almost 15 years

The issue I had with Console is that sometimes (read: Many) when minimized it wouldn't restore properly.
Joey almost 15 years

Didn't the OP mention "bug-free"? Last I looked Console was pretty horribly in that respect.
leeand00 almost 15 years

eh..it's not free...
Admin almost 15 years

@Molly Exporting as HTML! That is a sweet feature!
Admin almost 15 years

I'm going to have to give that a try.
Jichao over 14 years

Yes,it's trully horribe...and all editions of this software are marked as beta.
Jichao over 14 years

It does not work well on my windows xp(chinese edition)
xiao about 13 years

Dislike it since it is not free :(
leeand00 about 13 years

That looks pretty cool xiao. I'll have to check that out. Thanks!
Mason Zhang about 13 years

NOTE: It's not free! It's a shareware. where did you get a free version?
Progress almost 13 years

I just wanted to note that I have been using PowerCMD for a year and it is extremely buggy. A lot of interactive programs like irb, p4, php etc do not run properly and cause you to have to close out. It also constantly spits out the system environment variables. It's very annoying and I am uninstalling as I type this.
Taptronic over 12 years

"What are the best (i.e. bug free) Multi-tab command prompts in Windows?" That is the question that was posed. WHERE do the downvoters see the word FREE?
Taptronic almost 12 years

He asked for BUG free. Not necessarily MONEY free.......
Vihaan Verma almost 12 years

Does it provide reverse history search like in Linux console ?
Maximus almost 12 years

What do you mean by "history"? Console output? Current version allows searching only in visible part of screen. Searching in whole buffer (scrollable area) is in plans.
Vihaan Verma almost 12 years

no I mean on Linux you could press CNTRL + R and type a command. It will search in the history of previously executed command and provide suggestion. It pretty handy to execute long command with few keys.
Maximus almost 12 years

Refer to windows console hotkeys. F7 or F3 for example. This is standard for windows. ConEmu has no need to override them. Alternatively, there are tcc/le, clink and Far Manager.
starbeamrainbowlabs almost 11 years

Norton flags this is as "Suspicious.Cloud.7.EP".
Maximus almost 11 years

@starbeamrainbowlabs - False report
starbeamrainbowlabs almost 11 years

@Maximus You mean false positive?
Maximus almost 11 years

@starbeamrainbowlabs Yes.
Lorenzo over 10 years

I tried to use Console2 (last release dates 2011) to run Cygwin 64 bits in my Windows 7 64 bits desktop and it didn't work. Researching a bit I was able to find ConsoleZ which is a fork of the former that is properly updated and was able to support the environment I described.
Abdessamad Idrissi about 10 years

I confirm this is the easiest to install and quickest to get you started (tested console and conemu but either they don't ahve installer and second needs extra setup before the can run)
Phuah Yee Keat about 10 years

Console2 sometimes hide the last row from my view. And I can't figure out how to mark and copy in Console2!
Anmol Saraf over 8 years

Awesome tool! I wanted to up vote but then found out I already up voted long back in the past :) Wish I could cast 2 up votes here.
Joe Coder almost 8 years

The best of the conhost replacements!
MiKE over 7 years

Top answer! I love this tool! Thank you so much for sharing!
Rick Love over 7 years

Great tool! The split view is perfect (wish it was a bit easier to configure), but great for my needs
Thalys over 7 years

what does cmder do? how's it a good option? What's it do better than these alternatives?
Amit Tomar about 7 years

Doesn't work with python interactive shell.
sasdev about 7 years

It has a option to enable quake 3 style slidedown.
Hendy Irawan over 6 years

Thanks, PowerISO is pretty when you have nothing else. I just realized that I needed split view more than multi-tab, so I prefer ConEmu.
Juan Carlos Oropeza over 6 years

The tool show user.name@pc_name before the folder. Can I remove that? And for rename a consola the shortcut say Apps-R I now windows key but which one is Apps?
Maximus over 6 years

Look in cmdinit.cmd. conemu.github.io/en/AppsKey.html
Admin over 6 years

Not really good: 1) TAB key autocompletion doesn't work anymore (it works with Windows 7's cmd.exe) 2) Try BACKSPACE key: it will even erase the prompt C:\Windows> etc. I didn't go further but it seems that there's lot of little UI oddities.
Matt over 6 years

While this looks like a good tool, the question asked specifically about a multi-tab command prompt. It doesn't look like Babun supports tabs. I downvoted this answer as it does not answer the question. I'd be happy to remove my downvote if Babun does in fact support tabs.
Nick Tsai about 6 years

Cmder is based on ComEmu which the interface is better.
William almost 6 years

This hasn't appeared to ship yet unfortunately.
Alex over 5 years

This one is way better than Cmder which eat a lot of RAM and is slow
Dwza about 5 years

This project is also discontinued!
Vikash about 5 years

agree .. dont know why windows doesn't make it default
samayo almost 5 years

conemu is a nightmare to configure. I am one of the first people to ever use it before anyone even hear of it and there are some simple things I can never configure to this day like changing startup dir. I would choose it with caution
Aftershock over 4 years

Can it save its state?
Admin over 2 years

holy shmoly nothing beats this!
Swapnil Masurekar over 2 years

This is the best option amongst all. Thanks