Windows Console is a GUI application for running console applications in Windows. Windows Console is used for running text-based programs such as operating system shells (e.g. Command Prompt and PowerShell), utilities (e.g. Far Manager) and some, generally older, applications (e.g. Midnight Commander).

Windows Terminal was introduced in Windows 10 as a replacement for Windows Console. In 2019, the console host was open-sourced under the MIT License, alongside Windows Terminal.

Windows Console runs in either window or full-screen mode. The mode can be toggled by pressing Alt+↵ Enter.

In window mode, the console writes text in a window and uses an operating system's font rendering. In this mode, an application's user interaction is controlled by the windowing system, analogous to X Window System applications such as xterm.

In Windows XP and earlier, the full-screen console uses a hardware text mode and uploads a raster font to the video adapter, analogous to a text-based system console. This early full-screen mode only supports VGA-compatible text modes, giving it a maximum character resolution of 80 columns by 28 rows. This mode was removed in Windows Vista, although until Windows 8, it was possible to circumvent this issue by installing a Windows XP display driver.

Windows 10 features a full-screen mode once again. The implementation uses the native Windows rendering subsystem instead of the text mode, and supports rows and columns to fill the screen.

A program may programmatically interact with its host console via the Windows API, which exposes both high-level functions (such as ReadFile, ReadConsole, WriteFile, and WriteConsole) and low-level functions (e.g. ReadConsoleInput and WriteConsoleOutput).

A user can configure the console font or color palette, either system-wide or at the application level. An instance of a console application, however, cannot change its font or color palette on the fly.