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PowerShell console characters are garbled for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages on Windows Server 2022

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This article provides a resolution to an issue that characters in PowerShell console are garbled.

Applies to:   Windows PowerShell

Symptom

When you launch a PowerShell console, the characters are garbled. This issue only occurs in the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages versions of Windows.

Cause

By default, Windows PowerShell .lnk shortcut is hardcoded to use the "Consolas" font. The "Consolas" font doesn't have the glyphs for CJK characters, so the characters aren't rendered correctly. Changing the font to "MS Gothic" explicitly fixes the issue because the "MS Gothic" font has glyphs for CJK characters.

The Command Prompt (cmd.exe) doesn't have this issue, because the cmd .lnk shortcut doesn't specify a font. The console chooses the right font at runtime depending on the system language.

Resolution

The issue will be fixed in Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 very soon, but the fix won't be backported to lower versions.

To work around the issue, use either of the following two workarounds.

Workaround 1: Launch the PowerShell from cmd.exe

Open a Command Prompt (cmd.exe) console, and then run powershell.exe. This opens a PowerShell console without any font issues.

Workaround 2: Change the font in the PowerShell console

  1. Start PowerShell in the normal way. Use either of the two steps:
    • Select Start Menu, and then select PowerShell.
    • Press Windows Key + R to open the Run box, type PowerShell, and then press Enter.
  2. Right-click the top bar of the PowerShell console, select Properties, and then select the Font tab.
  3. Under Font, select MS Gothic, and then select OK.

This should resolve the issue.