Windows Terminal is going to provide tabbed access to PowerShell and Linux subsystem

Microsoft will release a new commandline application for Windows called Windows Terminal in mid-June. The application supports tabs and themes and provides access to cmd, PowerShell and the updated Windows Subsystem for Linux.

In addition to tabs and themes, the Windows Terminal offers full support for Unicode, including emoji, according to Microsoft. In addition, the terminal supports extensions and there is GPU acceleration for rendering text. The commandline tool extends the functionality of existing tools such as cmd, PowerShell and Windows Subsystem for Linux and can serve as a single terminal for multiple shells. A preview of the Windows Terminal is available immediately and the final release will follow in mid-June. The Windows Terminal source code is on GitHub.

The Windows Subsystem for Linux itself will be updated to version 2. This is based on Linux kernel 4.19, which becomes part of Windows. The version would allow for shorter Linux boot times and more efficient memory usage. In addition, Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 improves file system I/O performance and can run standard Docker containers without the need for another virtual machine. A preview of WSL 2 will be released later this year. Microsoft introduced the Linux subsystem in Windows 10 in 2016, with the arrival of Bash to the OS.