On macOS, the built-in terminal is called appropriately enough Terminal.

The shorter prompt of > will be used going forward for Windows. At this point, don't worry about what comes to the left of the > prompt: it varies depending on each computer and can be customized at a later date. Your username will obviously be different. Here is how it looks on my computer.īefore the prompt is PS which refers to PowerShell, the initial C directory of the Windows operating system, followed by the Users directory and the current user which, on my personal computers, is wsv. It will open a new window with a dark blue background and a blinking cursor after the > prompt. To access it, locate the taskbar on the bottom of the screen next to the Windows button and type in 'powershell' to launch the app. On Windows, the built-in terminal and shell are both called PowerShell.

It is easy to be confused by these terms initially but they all essentially mean the same thing: the command line is where we run and execute text-only commands on our computer. Technically speaking, the terminal is the program that opens up a new window to access the command line, a console is a text-based application, the shell is the program that runs commands on the underlying operating system, and the prompt is where commands are typed and run. In practice, multiple terms are used to refer to the command line: Command Line Interface (CLI), console, terminal, shell, or prompt. Make sure not to blindly copy and paste commands you find online only rely on trusted resources for any command you don't fully understand. As a result, the command line must be used with caution. There is often no feedback after a command has run and it is possible to delete an entire computer with a single command: no warning will pop up. Given its minimal user interface-just a blank screen and a blinking cursor-the command line is intimidating to newcomers. With a little practice most developers find that the command line is actually a faster and more powerful way to navigate and control a computer. A typical user will never need to use the command line but software developers do because certain tasks can only be done with it: running programs, installing software, using Git for version control, or connecting to servers in the cloud. It is an alternative to the mouse or finger-based graphical user interface familiar to most computer users. If you have ever seen a show where hackers are furiously typing into a black window, that's the command line. The command line is a powerful text-only interface for computers.

Mac terminal for windows