CMD.exe replacement [closed]

Question

Does anyone know of a good Command Prompt replacement? I've tried bash/Cygwin, but that does not really meet my needs at work because it's too heavy. I'd like a function-for-function identical wrapper on cmd.exe, but with highlighting, intellisense, and (critically) a tabbed interface. Powershell is okay, but the interface is still lacking.

Answer 1

For decent completion and command history, try the PyCmd wrapper at https://sourceforge.net/projects/pycmd/

Answer 2

Nick, I know you asked this a long while ago but I've just found it while searching for something related. I have been using PromptPal and its been great. I got it about a year ago, early 2008, and it was through this discount software thing called BitsDujour. I just went there and noticed they had a deal for 51% off that product only a few days ago. Keep your eyes on that site and maybe the discount will come up again soon. Its well worth the $30 but I got 2 licenses for 1/2 off, one for each of my PCs...

Answer 3

If you want not to use cmd.exe totally then go for ZOC.exe terminal.ZOC is enterprise application.

Else just add some feature to your Command prompt by installing GOW.EXE.GOW is opensource application.

But always you can go for Git which is giving mostly commands in bash. Just add the bin folder to your environment path. Your command prompt will work as unix terminal.

Answer 4

I use Take Command 9.0. I have used JPSoft's products for years. It has a tabbed interface. I have Take Command start with Take Command, Powershell, and CMD.exe each in their own tab. It doesn't do syntax highlighting. Take Command is syntactically compatible with CMD.exe and enhances each command quite a bit and adds many more.

PowerShell isn't a complete replacement for CMD.exe or Take Command. I find myself using both. You might ask why I would still use CMD.exe and it is because I will use Take Command to test a batch file that is limited to commands that work in CMD.exe and I then need to deploy the batch file on a workstation/server that doesn't have Take Command on it. I can create/test in Take Command and then verify it works in CMD.exe before deploying it.

I don't know of any IDE's that provide Intellisense for batch files specifically. If they did it would only be for a few keywords anyway. Most of the time in batch files you are running commands that are external to the batch language and wouldn't be included in the Intellisense.

I use Textpad to edit my batch files. Take Command has a debugger and it has logging capabilities which makes it very easy to test your batch files.

Answer 5

Edited: I've been using ConEmu (http://conemu.github.io/) for quite some time now. This one is a wrapper too, since it is not really possible to replace the Windows console without rewriting the whole command interpreter. Below the line is my original answer for an earlier alternative.

---

Not exactly a replacement (actually, it's a prettifying wrapper) but you might try Console (http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/)

Answer 6

If you want a more feature-rich UI for Powershell, try PowerGUI.

http://powergui.org/index.jspa