Better windows command line shells [closed]

Answer 1

Depending on what you're trying to do with the shell, rxvt in cygwin is good.

You'll get the nicety of auto copy on selection and middle click paste. The biggest downside is that some windows console apps don't play nice with cygwin.

Answer 2

Take Command does support Copy/Cut/Paste from the keyboard and the mouse. It's pretty handy if you do a lot of work from a command prompt. It also supports:

• Command and folder history, with popup windows to select prior commands or folders.
• Screen scroll back buffer
• Enhanced batch commands
• Built in FTP/HTTP file access
• A toolbar with programmable buttons

Note: It's a paid tool, with price of $99.95.

Answer 3

MinTTY on MinGW/MSYS is nice—nicer than on Cygwin because MinGW/MSYS is faster. Also, if you need cmd.exe behaviour, you can run cmd.exe inside of mintty easily.

See http://code.google.com/p/mintty/.

Answer 4

The Windows cmd shell, Cygwin Bash, and msysgit Bash shells can be run within Emacs. EmacsW32 provides all three separately. You just have to set the bin directory to use either of the Bash shells. EmacsW32 also provides limited interactions between the Windows clipboard and the top item of the kill ring.

Answer 5

Windows PowerShell is the obvious choice when it comes to "better windows command line shell other than cmd". Its clipboard handling isn't that much of an improvement - mark with the mouse, Enter to copy, or right mouse click to paste.

Answer 6

Enable QuickEdit mode, under the Options tab of your shortcut to the command shell. Mark with the mouse, right-click to copy, right-click again to paste.

While you're there, enable a hotkey (like CTRL + ALT + C) for lightning fast access to the shell.

And no, you can't have CTRL + C for COPY, because CTRL + C means BREAK.

On a related note, the Microsoftee who changed the default setting of QuickEdit mode between Windows Server 2000 and 2003 is an idiot and I heap curses upon him each workday.