Windows CMD alternative

Tired of MS/DOS prompt limitations? Try ConEmu.

Windows
Software

Follow instructions in this article to get the coolest shell experience on Windows.

I use to put portable software in folder C:\Portable.

ConEmu

Download ConEmu.

It can be installed as a portable software, as you can read in Portable.txt

If You want to use «Portable» mode, just create empty file «ConEmu.xml» in this folder.

that is the folder where you uncompress ConEmu.

You will see a configuration wizard first time you run ConEmu, and, yes check the Quake-style slide down from the to of the screen flag.

ConEmu_fast_configuration

Since my default keyboard layout is Italian, I see CTRL+ò as the keyboard shortcut. It is better to change it to CTRL+\ that is what the author meant, i.e. CTRL+` if you have a USA keyboard layout.

Babun integration

You can add as many so called Tasks as you want. That is the name ConEmu gives to a shell, many of them are already preconfigured. As an example, I will add Babun.

Install Babun

Download Babun and uncompress it.

Change dir to the path where you uncompressed Babun and launch the installer with a custom target.

install.bat /t "C:\Portable"

which will install Babun under C:\Portable\.babun path. When installation finishes if you get this warning

Executing daily babun check:
Source consistent [OK]
Prompt speed      [OK]
File permissions  [OK]
Connection check  [FAILED]
Update check      [FAILED]

probably you are behind a proxy, so, as you can read in the message, you need to

adjust proxy settings in ~/.babunrc and execute ‘source ~/.babunrc’

Configure a new ConEmu task

In ConEmu press Win+Alt+P or open settings from menu, go to Startup > Tasks, press + icon to add a new task and set it as specified in Babun FAQ but with the custom path.