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Windows 7 Brings Consolas Font to Command Prompt

By Doug Holland (Intel) (249 posts) on July 27, 2009 at 9:17 pm

I noticed this evening that the Consolas font that has become popular among developers using Visual Studio is now an option within the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 command prompts.

Setting the Consolas font as the default command prompt font is done within the Font tab of the command prompt properties Window, shown here.

Once set, the Consolas font is a welcome improvement to the command prompt which unfortunately is unable to use other true type fonts that may be installed upon the system.

Unfortunately the Windows command prompt hasn't changed significantly over the years even through many advanced Windows users find themselves using it on a daily basis. It would be nice if the Windows team was to bring some other capabilities to the command prompt in Windows 8 such as opacity settings although until such time the Consolas font is a welcome start.

Categories: Parallel Programming, Software Tools

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Comments (8)

July 28, 2009 6:34 AM PDT bob e

It is a beautiful thing to see Consolas in the cmd prompt. Thanks for sharing that.

July 28, 2009 9:11 AM PDT Dale Thompson

I'd recommend against recommending this. While Consolas is an excellent text editor font it makes a poor console font. The font ends up rendered with quite a bit to much extra blank space above and below the letters. Lucida Console current works best for use in a console like the cmd prompt or putty.

July 28, 2009 10:24 AM PDT Doug Holland (Intel) Total Points: 14,135 Black Belt

Hey Bob, Glad you like the Consolas font within the command prompt and if you have machines not running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, the font can be added using the following registry key. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionConsoleTrueTypeFont See Scott Hanselman's blog for more details on doing this: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/UsingConsolasAsTheWindowsConsoleFont.aspx Regards, Doug

July 28, 2009 10:26 AM PDT Doug Holland (Intel) Total Points: 14,135 Black Belt

Hey Dale, I'm sorry that you don't personally care for the Consolas font within the command prompt, I guess that's why we have options in various tools such as the command prompt. You're right though, the Lucida Console font is a good alternative. As for the registry key in my above comment it looks like the blogging engine stipped out the slashes although it will be correct at Scott's blog page. Regards, Doug

July 28, 2009 11:37 AM PDT Gastón C. Hillar Total Points: 4,424 Black Belt

Hey Doug, Thanks for another great tip! Consolas font is really easier to read. My eyes are happy! Cheers, Gastón

July 28, 2009 12:15 PM PDT Doug Holland (Intel) Total Points: 14,135 Black Belt

Agreed Gastón, I just updated a Windows Server 2008 SP2 machine with the registry change also and so I have the Consolas font within the command prompt there too!!! Regards, Doug

March 30, 2010 3:23 AM PDT rxwen

I’ve tried this ending in not seeing consolas in font list. Here is another way achieving this: http://rxwen.blogspot.com/2010/03/change-command-prompt-font.html

April 17, 2010 7:03 PM PDT garukun

Is there a microsoft rep who can comment on rxwen's post above? It seems really dumb if the Consolas would not show up after you install another language pack.

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