Windows Terminal preview now available in the Microsoft Store

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
published

Terminal, meet store.

What you need to know

  • The new Windows Terminal is now available in preview on the Microsoft Store.
  • The Microsoft Store listing makes clear that this is an early preview version of the app.
  • The new terminal was announced at Build 2019 and brings several new features.

Updated June 24, 2018: In a blog post over the weekend, Microsoft announced (opens in new tab) that the Windows Terminal preview release is now available to download from the Microsoft Store. The original story follows.

One of the biggest announcements to come out of Microsoft's Build 2019 conference earlier this year for developers was the new Windows Terminal (opens in new tab), and so far it's only been available in preview form via GitHub. However, Microsoft said the Windows Terminal app would hit the Microsoft Store this summer, and now it has delivered.

But don't get your hopes up; it isn't working just yet.

A Microsoft Store listing for the app (opens in new tab) was found by Twitter user Stanzilla (via Neowin), and it's very clear that this is an early preview version. And by early, the app doesn't work even if you manage to install it.

From the listing:

This very early preview release includes many usability issues, most notably the lack of support for assistive technology. Much of the internal work to support this is complete and it's our top priority to support assistive technology very soon. To follow progress please follow this issue on GitHub: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/634

Windows Terminal is designed to be one place for developers to tinker with Command Prompt, PowerShell, and the Windows Subsystem for Linux. The Terminal supports opening multiple tabs, Unicode and UTF-8 characters, custom themes, and sports a GPU accelerated text rendering engine.

For now, if you want to try Windows Terminal, you'll have to compile it from GitHub. Presumably, we'll gradually see Microsoft push updates to the app soon to get it working.

See at Microsoft (opens in new tab)

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Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

11 Comments
  • If this is even half as good as that video this is not only super useful for developers and other IT pros, but it bodes really well for the MS Store. Finally! MS themselves releasing really cool software on their own Store!!! I'm getting giddy here. ;0)
  • Just downloaded from the store. Working nicely, aside from tab management UI. Use key bindings instead to access tabs that overflow.
  • Same here. It is actually really nice terminal. I like it so far. Most important thing for me is SSH support, and that seem to be OK...
  • Does anyone know if this supports Serial connections?
  • Each profile takes a command line to host. For example "cmd.exe", "powershell.exe" or "ssh user@host". If you can frame it in those terms (as it were), I suspect it'd be straightforward.
  • Does not look like it does, at least not yet. By serial connection do you mean old, good "console" stuff??
  • Yup, that's probably 25% of my terminal use case. When I am in customer data centers, it's the only way I can connect to my equipment.
  • I would LOVE for a good serial console.
  • I've installed it, & it's working. I can choose from the Windows Command Prompt, or my two version of Powershell, or my 3 versions of Linux. It found them all automatically.
  • I editted the profile list to add VS Dev Prompt, F# and C# interactive consoles, Python, and SSH.
  • Is this supposed to replace Comand Prompt?