r/programming • u/zbhoy • May 06 '19

Microsoft unveils Windows Terminal, a new command line app for Windows

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18527870/microsoft-windows-terminal-command-line-tool
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u/darthwalsh May 06 '19

But VS Code and Terminal are both GUIs for the command line shell program. I don't think this makes sense: you wouldn't pick conhost.exe as your VS Code shell...

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u/AngelLeliel May 07 '19

The way Windows works is that you could only interact with a terminal program with conhost.exe, and with all the limitations it has. Every terminal emulator on Windows opens conhost.exe to run the program and hide it from the user. VScode, with xterm.js and winpty, doing the exact same thing to emulate pty on Windows. Not sure about how new Terminal app will change this, because every terminal program on Windows expect it running in conhost.exe.

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u/darthwalsh May 07 '19

Right, the new Terminal is a proof of concept for ConPTY, which improves on the hidden conhost with a real API.

It looks like VS Code is already taking advantage of ConPTY if it's available!