terminal/doc/user-docs/index.md

Windows Terminal User Documentation

NOTE: At the time of writing Windows Terminal is still under active development and many things will change. If you notice an error in the docs, please raise an issue. Or better yet, please file a PR with an appropriate update!

Installing Windows Terminal

From Source Code

To compile Windows Terminal yourself using the source code, follow the instructions in the README.

From the Microsoft Store

1. Make sure you have upgraded to the current Windows 10 release (at least build 1903). To determine your build number, see winver.
2. Open the Windows Terminal listing in the Microsoft Store.
3. Review the minimum system requirements to confirm you can successfully install Windows Terminal.
4. Click Get to begin the installation process.

Starting Windows Terminal

From the Windows Start menu, select Windows Terminal and run the application.

Note: You can right click on the application item and run with Windows Administrator privilege if required.

The default shell is PowerShell.

Command line options

None at this time. See issue #607

Multiple Tabs

Additional shells can be started by hitting the + button from the tab bar -- a new instance of the default shell is displayed (default shortcut Ctrl+Shift+1).

Running a Different Shell

Note: This section assumes you already have Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) installed. For more information, see the installation guide.

Windows Terminal uses PowerShell as its default shell. You can also use Windows Terminal to launch other shells, such as cmd.exe or WSL's bash:

1. In the tab bar, click the ⌵ button to view the available shells.
2. Choose your shell from the dropdown list. The new shell session will open in a new tab.

To customize the shell list, see the Configuring Windows Terminal section below.

Starting a new PowerShell tab with admin privilege

There is no current plan to support this feature for security reasons. See issue #623

Using cut and paste in the Terminal window

With PowerShell

• Copy - Select the text with mouse (default left button), then right click with mouse
• Paste - by default use <ctrl>+v>, or right click with mouse

With Bash

• Copy - Select the text with mouse (default left button), then right click with mouse
• Paste - Right click with mouse

Add a "Open Windows Terminal Here" to File Explorer

Not currently supported "out of the box". See issue #1060

Configuring Windows Terminal

All Windows Terminal settings are currently managed using the profiles.json file, located within $env:LocalAppData\Packages\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe/LocalState.

To open the settings file from Windows Terminal:

1. Click the ⌵ button in the top bar.
2. From the dropdown list, click Settings. You can also use a shortcut: Ctrl+,.
3. Your default json editor will open the settings file.

For an introduction to the various settings, see Using Json Settings. The list of valid settings can be found in the profiles.json documentation section.

Tips and Tricks:

1. In PowerShell you can discover if the Windows Terminal is being used by checking for the existence of the environment variable WT_SESSION.

   Under pwsh you can also use (Get-Process -Id $pid).Parent.Parent.ProcessName -eq 'WindowsTerminal'

   (ref https://twitter.com/r_keith_hill/status/1142871145852440576)

2. Terminal zoom can be changed by holding Ctrl and scrolling with mouse.

3. If useAcrylic is enabled in profiles.json, background opacity can be changed by holding Ctrl+Shift and scrolling with mouse.

4. Please add more Tips and Tricks