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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.

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"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. – afrazier Apr 14 '11 at 3:55
@afrazier I should would like to know why, it's so much more powerful than a GUI. – leeand00 Apr 14 '11 at 11:55

6 Answers

up vote 12 down vote accepted

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

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@leeand00 Go Stillers! :) – leeand00 Aug 27 '09 at 14:37
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The issue I had with Console is that sometimes (read: Many) when minimized it wouldn't restore properly. – Nate Aug 27 '09 at 14:41
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Didn't the OP mention "bug-free"? Last I looked Console was pretty horribly in that respect. – Joey Aug 27 '09 at 15:43
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Yes,it's trully horribe...and all editions of this software are marked as beta. – Jichao Nov 4 '09 at 1:11
It does not work well on my windows xp(chinese edition) – Jichao Nov 4 '09 at 1:14
up vote 1 down vote

PromptPal is the best I have ever used.

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eh..it's not free... – leeand00 Aug 27 '09 at 15:51
Dislike it since it is not free :( – xiao Apr 11 '11 at 4:00
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"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? – Electric Automation Feb 28 '12 at 12:37
up vote 1 down vote

My recommendation (favorite commands is a killer feature):

ColorConsole

Features:

  • Favorites commands
  • Export to HTML and RTF
  • Copy,Paste,Cut...
  • Customizable font style and color
  • Tabbed working with multi cmd.exe.
  • Fast folder switch.
  • Portable

alt text

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@Molly Exporting as HTML! That is a sweet feature! – leeand00 Aug 27 '09 at 15:52
I'm going to have to give that a try. – leeand00 Aug 27 '09 at 15:55
up vote 2 down vote

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/ enter image description here

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That looks pretty cool xiao. I'll have to check that out. Thanks! – leeand00 Apr 11 '11 at 12:12
NOTE: It's not free! It's a shareware. where did you get a free version? – Mason Zhang Apr 13 '11 at 14:10
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. – user92488 Aug 1 '11 at 13:55
He asked for BUG free. Not necessarily MONEY free....... – Electric Automation Jul 6 '12 at 13:48
up vote 18 down vote

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

enter image description here

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. If you like it, please upvote ConEmu Community Promotion Ads - 2012.

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Does it provide reverse history search like in Linux console ? – Vihaan Verma Aug 29 '12 at 7:07
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. – Maximus Aug 29 '12 at 9:40
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. – Vihaan Verma Aug 29 '12 at 9:54
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. – Maximus Aug 29 '12 at 11:23
@VihaanVerma the <Ctrl-R> option you are talking about refers to bash and GNU readline. The terminal emulator, like ConEmu or xterm, shouldn't affect its operation. <Ctrl-R> is totally separate and unrelated to this. – shurane Jan 28 at 6:43
up vote 0 down vote

FireCMD command shell is what you are looking for. It has a MDI(Multiple Document Interface). This means you can run multiple command shells and console applications simultaneously in tabbed windows, including the FireCMD shell, CMD.exe, Bash, PowerShell, Cygwin etc. Moreover, you can also edit multiple text files simultaneously in FireTXT text editor unlike Notepad which only allows to edit a single file at a time.

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