Change the colors of the Windows console

The default colors of the console have been improved in the Fall Creators Update. The blue color was barely readable before that update:

At the same time, Microsoft has released a new tool to apply a custom color scheme. You can download the zip file on GitHub: https://github.com/Microsoft/console/releases. Then, extract the archive and open a command prompt in this folder. You can now quickly change the color scheme using this command line:

colortool.exe -b campbell

There are multiple themes included:

• Campbell
• Campbell-legacy
• cmd-legacy
• deuteranopia
• OneHalfDark
• OneHalfLight
• solarized_dark
• solarized_light

For instance, solarized_dark:

You can also download custom theme on internet. Put the .itermcolors files in the theme directory and use colortool.exe -b <filename> to use them. You'll find lots of .itermcolors files on GitHub, for instance, iTerm2-Color-Schemes or iterm-colors.

Here's the 2 announcements from Microsoft:

• https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/08/02/updating-the-windows-console-colors/
• https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/08/11/introducing-the-windows-console-colortool/

You'll also find useful tips about the console in the following post.

Do you have a question or a suggestion about this post? Contact me!