Change the colors of the Windows console

The default console colors were improved in the Fall Creators Update. Before that update, the blue color was barely readable:

Microsoft also released a new tool to apply custom color schemes. Download the zip file from GitHub: https://github.com/Microsoft/console/releases. Extract the archive and open a command prompt in that folder. You can then apply a color scheme with a single command:

colortool.exe -b campbell

Several themes are included out of the box:

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

For example, solarized_dark:

You can also download custom themes from the internet. Place the .itermcolors files in the themes directory and apply them with colortool.exe -b <filename>. GitHub has many .itermcolors files available, such as iTerm2-Color-Schemes or iterm-colors.

Here are the two 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.

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