the essence of shells and terminals in Windows

Ruslan Kazmiryk 40 Reputation points
2023-12-22T08:16:10.82+00:00

I want to ask about some terminology related to shells/terminals in Windows.

  1. «conhost = CommandPrompt with scroll back» - what is «conhost» and what does it mean «shell with scroll back»?
  2. «Power Shell is loop back to CommandPrompt» - what does it mean?
  3. what does it mean « Windows Terminal = CommandPrompt/Powershell GUI loopback»?

And in general what is meaning of word «loopback»?

 

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-12-25T06:41:58.5233333+00:00

    Hi Ruslan Kazmiryk,

    The Windows Console Host, or conhost.exe, is both the server application for all of the Windows Console APIs as well as the classic Windows user interface for working with command-line applications. Shell with scroll back means you can scroll the screen back to show the output earlier.

    PowerShell is a modern command shell that includes more features than the traditional Command Prompt which was introduced in the 1980s.

    Windows Terminal is a modern host application for the command-line shells like Command Prompt and PowerShell.

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/console/definitions#console-host

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/overview

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/

    Best Regards,

    Ian Xue


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