**// Disregard this, use [[mintty - A decent native Windows shell]]//** ---- CMD.EXE sucks and the Windows-native replacements are all rubbish. What to do? Install Cygwin with RXVT. It doesn't have tabs, but everything else about it is fine. It doesn't require an X server. You'll have two options: rxvt-x and rxvt-native. Both work. To set the font of rxvt-x, edit values in .Xdefaults (below). To set the font of rxvt-native, edit the shortcut itself. If you're on Windows 7 and want to use pinning, rxvt-native is a better choice, since rxvt-x runs through a wrapper that confuses the Windows 7 pinning system. To set your shell to bash, make an environment variable "''SHELL''" equal to "''bash''". To configure RXVT, create a ''~/.Xdefaults'' file populated with the material below. Also, you may wish to add the following to your ''.bashrc'': if [ "$TERM" == "rxvt-cygwin" ] ; then export TERM=xterm ; fi if [ "$TERM" == "rxvt-cygwin-native" ] ; then export TERM=xterm ; fi This will change the value of the TERM environment value to "''xterm''" instead of "''rxvt-cygwin''" when using rxvt, which is useful since most servers have never heard of "''rxvt-cygwin''" and would otherwise assume you have a dumb terminal. Content of ''~/.Xdefaults'': ! Save this file as ~/.Xdefaults and start a term without any options to ! see what it does. ! Use ! for comments (if you don't like a certain setting) ! The `Xterm' settings work for most terms like aterm, xterm, wterm and rxvt. ! Color section XTerm*background: #000000 XTerm*foreground: #cfcfcf XTerm*cursorColor: #cdc092 !black XTerm*color0: #000000 !red XTerm*color1: #e01010 !green XTerm*color2: #20ad20 !yellow XTerm*color3: #d4c24f !blue XTerm*color4: #231bb8 !purple XTerm*color5: #9c3885 !cyan XTerm*color6: #1dbdb8 !white XTerm*color7: #fefefe !bright-black XTerm*color8: #6a6a6a !bright-red XTerm*color9: #e83a3d !bright-green XTerm*color10: #35e956 !bright-yellow XTerm*color11: #ffff2f !bright-blue XTerm*color12: #3a53f0 !bright-purple XTerm*color13: #e628ba !bright-cyan XTerm*color14: #1cf5f5 !bright-white XTerm*color15: #ffffff ! Nice for manpages ! !XTerm*underLine: on !XTerm*colorMode: on XTerm*colorBD: lightyellow !XTerm*colorBDMode: off XTerm*colorUL: cyan !XTerm*colorULMode: on XTerm*dynamicColors: on XTerm*highlightSelection: true XTerm*eightBitInput: false XTerm*metaSendsEscape: true !XTerm*oldXtermFKeys: true XTerm*charClass: 33:48,35-38:48,39:43,42-47:48,58-59:48,61:48,63-64:48,126:48 !XTerm*charClass: 46-47:48,58:48,64:48,63:48,95:48,126:48,61:48,37:48,35:48,43:48,36:48 rxvt*font: courier rxvt.termName: rxvt rxvt*background: #100020 rxvt*foreground: #cfcfcf rxvt*cursorColor: #FFFF00 rxvt*scrollstyle: next rxvt*scrollTtyOutput: false rxvt*scrollWithBuffer: false rxvt*scrollTtyKeypress: true rxvt*saveLines: 5000 rxvt*visualBell: true