Windows Terminal Preview v1.18.1421.0

[DHowett]

Welcome to the Q2 release of Windows Terminal! Since we moved to a quarterly release cycle, these release notes have
really gotten out of control. Buckle up!

Note Well, the change from v1.17.1073 where we would munge our version number didn't live much longer than a single release. We finally rejoined the Windows 10 and Windows 11 packages!

Why are there so many packages? How do I choose?

Please visit our page documenting the Windows Terminal Distributions!

Features

• You can now drag tabs between windows or drop them off in space to make a new window! (Add support for moving panes and tabs between windows #14866) (Enable dragging tabs between windows #14901) (Enable tearing out tabs to create new windows #14935)
  • All instances of Windows Terminal now run in the same process (One process to rule them all #14843); please know that this may expose some
    reliability issues. This is a preview build! It might break! Please let us know if it does.
  • Terminal has learned to (optionally) keep running without any windows open (Add support for running the Terminal without _any_ windows #14944)
    • Enable global setting compatibility.allowHeadless (boolean, default false).
    • This will allow you to summon a "Quake mode" window even if there aren't any other Terminal windows open!
  • You can move tabs or panes individually to new windows with a new action in the command palette, as well (Add default bindings for "move tab/pane to a new window" #15258)
    • We have extended the moveTab and movePane actions with support for a window parameter; the format is the
      same as that of the -w command line argument.
  • As a side effect of this work, Terminal no longer locks the directory from which it was spawned (rejoice!)
  • Please note: Due to a bug in Windows 10, every window you close will leak about 15MiB of memory. This is
    intentional and prevents a crash (yeah, not amazing. We're tracking a fix!) (Leak the window when it closes on Windows 10 #15397)
• The experimental new text rendering engine AtlasEngine is now newer and still experimental!. It has been
  nearly completely rewritten with support for overlapping text! (Rewrite AtlasEngine to allow arbitrary overhangs #14959)
  • Practically speaking, this means that it will no longer cut off italic text, Emoji, or "complex" scripts. It
    will continue to clip box drawing glyphs to ensure that they look great. (AtlasEngine: Clip box glyphs to their cells #15343)
  • We've ensured that it still supports animated shaders (AtlasEngine: Fix animated shaders #15353), Han unification (AtlasEngine: Fix han unification issues #15358), and locl glyph variants (AtlasEngine: Add support for locl variants #15278)
  • It will now be used to display the Appearance preview in the Settings UI for profiles for which it is enabled (Fix AtlasEngine not being used in the appearance settings #15355)
• Terminal now offers an experimental, optional right-click context menu (Add support for a right-click context menu #14775) (#14252) (Fix a crash in the rclick context menu #15079)
  • Enable the menu with the profile setting experimental.rightClickContextMenu (boolean, default false)
  • You can invoke the menu--even if it is disabled--with action showContextMenu (Windows Terminal crashing when resizing panes #14254)
  • When you have shell integration enabled (FTCS marks, mentioned below), you can use the menu to select a command or
    its output (Add buttons for selecting commands, output to context menu #15020)
• You can now customize the height (and width) of character cells in the terminal (Implement cell size customizations #14255)
  • See the "line height" setting in Profile -> Appearance
  • Configurable via JSON in $profile.font.cellWidth and $profile.font.cellHeight (string, see below, default
    automatically calculated for optimal rightness)
    • Valid units include:
      • 1.0, 100%: multiplier or percent of font size
      • 12px: raw size in device independent pixels (supports fractional pixels)
      • 12pt: raw size in font points (1/72 of an inch; supports fractional points)
      • 1ch: multiplier of font advance width (supports fractional multiplier)
• Thanks to @ianjoneill, Terminal is now way better at handling environment variables.
  • New tabs/panes will now automatically reload the system environment (Reload environment variables by default; add setting to disable #14999) (Create til::env to help with refreshing environment variables #14839)
    • You can disable this feature with the global JSON setting compatibility.reloadEnvironmentVariables (bool,
      default true)
  • Profiles can now contain environment variables! (Support environment variables in the settings #15082)
    • Set JSON setting environment (map string -> string; default null)
      • As an example, "environment": { "COOL": "very", "HOW_COOL_IS_THIS": "it is %COOL% cool" }
• The "About" dialog will now inform you when an update is available (if you are using the "MSIX bundle" or
  "preinstallation kit" distributions; see below) (Check for updates automatically (but don't install) #13437)
• "Open Terminal Here" now supports Ctrl+Shift to launch an elevated session (Enable ctrl+shift to run terminal elevated from context menu #15137) (thanks @jamespack!)
• If you are using the FTCS "start of command", "start of output" and "end of output" marks (OSC 133), you can now use
  the selectCommand and selectOutput actions to select the command or output as demarcated by those sequences (Add the ability to select a whole command (or its output) #14807)
• You can now enable or disable read-only mode, rather than just toggling it, with the enableReadOnly and
  disableReadOnly actions (Add options to enable and disable read only mode #14995) (thanks @Swinkid!)
• You can now immediately restart a connection via the restartConnection action (Add an action for immediately restarting a connection #15241)
• We have made some changes to the officially supported list of Terminal distributions!
  • The "unpackaged" distribution of Terminal is now officially supported on Windows 10 (10.0.19041.1 and higher) and
    Windows 11 (10.0.22000.1 and higher)! (Add support for an unpackaged distribution of Terminal #15034)
  • We now offer support for running in portable mode, where settings are saved into a directory alongside the
    app (Add "portable mode", where settings load from the install path #15051)
  • If you have multiple unpackaged or portable installations of Terminal, they will now properly isolate from
    eachother (When unpackaged, isolate the monarch by the install path #15118)
  • LEARN MORE at our new documentation page for Windows Terminal Distributions!
  • In 1.18 and above: We've removed any runtime dependency on the "desktop" C++ Runtime Library (Generalize OpenConsoleProxy's HybridCRT logic #14733) (Enable the Hybrid CRT for all C++ projects #15010) (Remove our dependency on any CRT--AppX or forwarders #15097)
    • If you are installing 1.17 or below, you still need to install a VC++ runtime. Even in portable mode. Sorry.
• We have added another way of detecting whether "Default Terminal" is available on your OS 👀 (Add a second way of detecting whether DefTerm is available #15040)
• $theme.tab.showCloseButton now supports activeOnly, to display the x only on the active tab (Add support to show close button for active tab only. #15237) (thanks @kovdu!)

Changes

• file: URIs emitted by OSC 8 now support wsl$; URIs emitted by OSC 8 now support all valid schemas (Allow wsl$ in file URIs; generally allow all URI schemes #14993)
• The "Adjust Indistinguishable Text" feature now uses the Oklab color space (by Björn Ottosson) (Use Oklab for text and cursor contrast adjustments #15283)
  • It no longer has a measurable performance impact, either, so feel free to turn it on!
• Terminal will now send individual key down and key up events to console applications (Send a KeyUp sequence only once a key has been released #15130) (thanks @j4james!)
• We've refactored how Unicode input works for the ReadConsoleInput APIs in the Console and Terminal (Remove TranslateUnicodeToOem and all related code #14745)
• Any WSL distributions named rancher-desktop or rancher-desktop-data will now be ignored (Skip generating a profile for rancher-desktop #15166) (thanks @jamespack!)
  • Really sorry if you were using those for your day-to-day WSLing, but... what?

User Interface and Usability

• Terminal has updated to Microsoft.UI.Xaml 2.8 (Upgrade to MUX 2.8 #15078) (Update to MUX 2.8.3 #15183) (Use a "virtual CWD" for each terminal window #15280) (Update MUX to 2.8.4 #15313) (Also do the VisualState dance on the tab item #15217)
• We have added a Close Pane action to the tab context menu (Added Close Pane to Context Menu #15198) (thanks @joadoumie!)
• Since we have so many Close-related actions in the tab context menu, they've moved into a Close... submenu (Move the Close... actions to a nested menu on the tab #15250)
• The Profile Appearance preview now displays a more relevant and interesting preview (Add a fun new preview text in the SUI, enable the cursor #15363)
• We rewrote a bunch of the subtitles in the Settings UI for diction and flow (Reword or remove a bunch of subheadings in the SUI #15362) (Reword the AdjustIndistinguishableColors subhead and perf. note #15361)
• Rejoice! We have reintroduced the original Windows Terminal UI themes under the names Dark (Legacy), Light (Legacy) and System (Legacy) (Add "legacy" themes #15108)
• You will now be reprimanded harshly for choosing a proportional font (Add a warning when a proportional font is selected #15195) (thanks @jamespack!)
• Connection restarting with Enter (after hangup) or via the new action above is now safer and more reliable ((A better) Refactoring of how connection restarting is handled #15240)

Performance

• We have refactored text output to achieve a roughly 4x speedup in the common case (Add an efficient text stream write function #14821)
• The "Azure Cloud Shell" connection no longer depends on "cpprestsdk", the removal of which shrinks our package
  by about 3MB per architecture! (AzureConnection: remove our dependency on cpprestsdk #14776)
  • Due to differences in credential storage, this will require you to go through the Device Code authentication flow
    again.
• Terminal no longer needs to shell out to reg.exe to manipulate the registry to work around a platform
  limitation (Remove useRegExe and add rescap:unvirtualizedResources #15028) (Add flexible virtualization rules for HKCU\Console\Startup #15050)

VT and Compatibility

• Thanks to @j4james, we now support a whole new heap of control sequences! Thank you!
  • ... horizontal margins via DECSLRM (requires `DECSLRM) (Add support for horizontal margin sequences #15084)
  • ... LNM (Line Feed/New Line Mode) (Add support for LNM (Line Feed/New Line Mode) #15261)
  • ... DECAC queries via DECRQSS (Add support for querying the DECAC settings #14990)
  • ... DECRQCRA, to checksum a region of the screen (Add support for the DECRQCRA checksum report #14989)
  • ... presentation state reports, via DECRQPSR and DECRSPS (Add support for the Presentation State reports #14998)
  • ... a more detailed Device Attributes report DA (Provide a more detailed Device Attributes report #14906)
  • (with additional thanks to @al20878 for hands-on validation against the original hardware ❤️)
• The VT engine will now filter out control characters that don't do anything (Filter out control characters that don't do anything #15075) (thanks @j4james!)
• In addition, @michalnpl added support for querying the window size in cells via CSI 18 t! (Add support for CSI 18t  #15295) (thanks @michalnpl!)
• Merge the LineFeed functionality into AdaptDispatch (Merge the LineFeed functionality into AdaptDispatch #14874) (thanks @j4james!)

Bug Fixes

• centerOnLaunch no longer overrides the restoration of window positions (Actually use the persisted position with centerOnLaunch:true #15179)
• Indirect icon references (like foo.exe,-123) now work in the jump list (Add jump list support for indirect icon references #15221) (thanks @jamespack!)
• The command palette should no longer flee in terror when you activate it from the dropdown menu (Don't dismiss the command palette when the new tab menu closes #15340)
• We believe we have staked the DesktopWindowXamlSource window that would sometimes appear through the heart like a
  vampire (Manually hide our DesktopWindowXamlSource #15165)
• start /min wt and friends should now work properly (Respect the startup info state initially passed to wt via ShellExecute #13838) (A hypothetical fix for hidden windows #15213)
• Starting Terminal with an elevate:true profile should no longer cause an admin elevation loop (oops) (Clearly differentiate running elevated vs. drag/drop breaking #14946)
• "Open in Terminal" no longer shows up in ZIP files (???) (Disable the context menu command inside a zipped folder #15236) (thanks @jamespack!)
• The "Developer Command Prompt / PowerShell" profiles no longer override your starting directory (VsDevCmdGenerator: respect the user's startingDirectory #15035)
• Copying HTML to your clipboard no longer results in reeeeeally tiny text on high-DPI displays (Fix font size of HTML clipboard contents #15046)
• On very wide monitors, the Outlines shader sample no longer looks quite bad (Fix offset calculation in the outlines shader #14971)
• Ctrl+clicking a profile no longer ignores or breaks the profile's starting directory (Manually pre-evaluate the starting directory when calling elevate-shim #15286)

Accessibility

• The about dialog heading is now read out properly to a screen reader (Add automation heading level 1 to fix about dialog #15200) (thanks @BenConstable9!)
• The "reset color" button in the tab color picker is now more visible to screen readers (Make reset button accessible #15257) (thanks @BenConstable9!)

UI and stuff like it

• We have removed a 1px gap under the tabs only visible at >150% (Remove a 1px gap under the tabs only visible at >150% #15164)
• Terminal should no longer appear as an empty frame before quickly populating itself (Revert the revert of "Hide the window until we're finished with initialization" #13811)
• When you drag and drop a tab, that tab will now become focused (Update tab drop behavior to select dropped tab #14787) (thanks @chingucoding!)
• @jamespack has added epxlanatory text to "Always Show Tabs" explaining why it can't be turned off sometimes (Add subtext to why Always show tabs is not toggleable in SUI. #15154) (thanks @jamespack!)
• Opening a profile from a submenu no longer yeets keyboard focus off into space (Fix focus issue when profile selected from nested menu entry #15077) (thanks @kkostrzewa>!)
• When you're hovering over a URL, we now display it in a partially-encoded form to help you avoid homoglyph attacks (Format URLs for display when we show the tooltip #15095)

Reliability and Performance

• We will no longer scan for nearby font files unless your font is not found (improves startup perf) (Avoid loading nearby fonts unless necessary #15239)
• We've stopped creating and throwing out one MediaPlayer every time the bell sound plays (Avoid recreating the bell MediaPlayer every time #15333)
• The Command Palette and About dialog are now lazily constructed, saving launch time (Lazy load CommandPalette and AboutDialog #15203)
• Animations are disabled during startup so as to make Terminal start a bit faster (Avoid animations during startup #15204)
• The system menu now opens when you press <kbd>Alt+Space</kbd> in the Settings UI (Default to XamlRoot when unable to find focused object #15189) (thanks @jamespack!) with bugfixes (Fix an infinite loop when pressing alt #15253)

VT and Compatibility

• Terminal should no longer redraw in the middle of processing FTCS marks from NuShell (Prevent flickering in nushell due to FTCS marks #14677)
• In addition to the heap of changes above, @j4james contributed a number of VT bug fixes as well! Thank you!
  • We will now preserve the active attributes during VT resize operations (Preserve active attributes during VT resize operations #15269)
  • Our DECSC/DECRC implementation has been updated to match the newer DEC terminals (VT420+) (Update DECSC/DECRC to match the newer DEC terminals #15054) (with
    thanks to @al20878 for the same type of validation mentioned above)
  • Prevent crash when VTParameters::subspan is out of range (Prevent crash when VTParameters::subspan is out of range #15235)
  • DECCRA will no longer misbehave when copying from a double-width line (Fix DECCRA when copying from a double-width line #15026)
  • Delayed EOL wrap is now set in accordance with DEC STD 070 (Ensure that delayed EOL wrap is reset when necessary #14936)
• Console output modes are now tracked per buffer (so the alt buffer can have a different set of modes) (Make all console output modes more strictly buffer state #14735) (thanks @j4james!)
• The console hosting each application should now start up more reliably at the right size during "default terminal"
  handoff (Make conhost act in VtIo mode earlier in startup #15298)

Code Health, WPF and Windows Console

These changes impact the Terminal developer experience or the Windows Console Host. Changes to conhost will be released
in a coming Windows update.

• We have removed all traces of the UWP Terminal (which was an internal build for Windows 10X) (Remove IsUwp, RunAsUwp, defaults-universal and all fallout #15222)
• Some preparation has been completed to make Terminal and Console build with clang-cl (Correctness: Remove JsonUtils and IconConverter's 2-phase lookup bugs #14870) (Fix a number of minor correctness issues that Clang flagged #14871)
• conhost now supports bracketed paste mode (Add support for bracketed paste mode in ConHost #15155) (thanks @j4james!)
• conhost will no longer ignore the codepage stored in .LNK files (Respect the codepage stored in .LNK files in conhost #15111) (thanks @michalnpl!)
• The WPF control now allows you to set its Connection to null (which will clear the screen!) (fix: WpfTerminalControl allow Connection set to null #15062) (thanks @mitchcapper!)
• The WPF control now defaults to a history length of 9001 (wpf: Bump the history length to 9001 instead of 1000 #15129)

Asset Hashes

• Microsoft.WindowsTerminalPreview_1.18.1421.0_8wekyb3d8bbwe.msixbundle
  • SHA256 08F749E71FDEDBF967AED18163005727B4CD91BDBFC93847F4172CD18F3AC417
• Microsoft.WindowsTerminalPreview_1.18.1421.0_arm64.zip
  • SHA256 5CC4413AC36AC3C3B3C63C4A57239723FD16DF3A1FC25F620CA54BCF0B7F3FF1
• Microsoft.WindowsTerminalPreview_1.18.1421.0_x64.zip
  • SHA256 A216681CDC0F1B9709201193862D49E54B8047604A342350A2FC98656172F67F
• Microsoft.WindowsTerminalPreview_1.18.1421.0_x86.zip
  • SHA256 043C24AE080C71871958643D1F71976921E6C4CC553BA118846CCCA5D93278D2

---

This discussion was created from the release Windows Terminal Preview v1.18.1421.0.

[bzzrak]

How do I start Terminal in headless mode (with no windows)?

[zadjii-msft]

That's not supported yet, I'm tracking that in #9996 (more or less)

[CameronBrooksWalker]

Running the 1.18.1421.0 preview, and the tear-out doesn't seem to be enabled for me. Is there a flag or some such I need to enable in the settings? Or is this not out in this version?

[zadjii-msft]

Are you running the Terminal elevated (as Admin)? Drag drop doesn't work in elevated applications. We're vaguely tracking that in #6661.

[CameronBrooksWalker]

Aha! That's it! Hopefully that can be fixed at some point, but I'll see how much my daily work is affected by running non-elevated generally.

Thanks so much!

[jamespack]

Does seem to work from the command pallete though in an elevated terminal :)

[zadjii-msft]

Yea, it's specifically drag drop that doesn't work. Moving the content from one window to another is totally fine. It's literally the TabViewItem itself that can't be dragged 😐

[michalnpl]

link is 404

[jessey-git]

Gentle reminder that if the new version isn't listed on winget... then it doesn't exist.

[DHowett]

I appreciate the gentle reminder. We automatically publish all releases to WinGet, but a package dependency issue has prevented this one from being accepted for the past four days.

In the meantime, you can update from the store or from the GitHub releases page on this repository.

Fortunately, Store packages installed via WinGet automatically update via the Store. Even if they're not from the msstore source 😉

[denelon]

@jessey-git thank you for the sentiment here. We are looking at this issue currently at microsoft/winget-pkgs#108419. I'm looking for a solution to this as soon as possible.

[denelon]

@jessey-git we've release WinGet 1.6 with support for dependencies. The main Windows Terminal package has been updated:

• New version: Microsoft.WindowsTerminal version 1.18.2681.0 winget-pkgs#120906
  The PR for the preview version is in progress.
• New version: Microsoft.WindowsTerminal.Preview version 1.19.2682.0 winget-pkgs#120904

[srijit-mishra]

How can I use the Github Copilot Integration in terminal?

[zadjii-msft]

As of right now, you can't. There are definitely official plans, but it's not ready to ship quite yet. You can follow #15000 for updates.

[srijit-mishra]

Thanks!

[DHowett]

FYI, version 1.18.1462.0 is rolling out right now. Once the holiday is over I will make sure it gets put up on GitHub. I would do that now, but some credentials I need aren't available on my phone. 😄