So why replace it with Take Command?

• The Windows console is slow, and even slower when using Windows Terminal. Take Command's tab windows typically display output between 20% and 300% faster.
• Take Command (like Windows Terminal) offers tabbed windows to run your character-mode applications. But Take Command takes it to another level by including vertical or horizontal tab groups and splitter windows.
• Tabbed windows can be reordered, detached, or torn off, and existing console windows can be attached as new Take Command tab windows.
• Take Command provides an optional embedded Windows File Explorer window that displays a tree view of the folders on your system and the contents of the selected folder (List View) on the right. You can drag folders and files from the Explorer window and drop them in a command prompt window.
• Take Command can be easily configured for your preferences with its configuration dialogs.
• Take Command has an optional tabbed tool bar that you can use to execute internal or external commands, aliases, or batch files with the click of a mouse (or an accelerator key). You can define up to 20 tabs, each with up to 50 toolbar buttons.
• Take Command provides a configurable Status Bar that can display quick help for the current command, tooltips, and system information, including tab window size, CPU usage, memory usage, date & time, character values at the cursor location, and a slider control for window transparency.
• Cut and Paste options are limited in the default CMD console or Windows Terminal. Take Command adds both line and column selection, double-click or triple-click selections, overwriting or appending to the Windows clipboard, and a variety of paste options.
• Take Command windows can be styled with a choice of 18 themes.
• Take Command and TCC offer a wide variety of colorization options, not just foreground and background colors.
• Take Command includes invaluable tools, including a batch file debugging IDE, a regular expression creator / analyzer, search and replace in files, and a macro recorder / playback.
• Extensive help (quick help, context sensitive help, and general help) is available in English, French, German, and Spanish at the touch of a button.
   

Packed With Features Windows Console Users Need

• You can run multiple command prompt windows and GUI applications simultaneously in tabbed windows, including our own Take Command Console (TCC), CMD, bash and PowerShell.
• The integrated file explorer allows you to examine directories and drag and drop files to the tabbed command prompt windows.
• The programmable tabbed toolbar lets you create up to 20 tabs with up to 50 toolbar buttons on each. Toolbar buttons can start new tabs or windows, or send commands or text to existing tabs.
• Take Command and TCC support ANSI, UTF8, and UTF16 files, redirection, and pipes.
• The TCC scripting language is a massive superset of CMD command prompt commands, with 270 internal commands, 440 internal functions, and 340 internal variables. Almost all of the CMD  commands (e.g. COPY, DEL, DIR, MOVE, REN, START, etc.) are enhanced with hundreds of additional options, and TCC adds more than 220 new commands. Take Command can usually do in one or two lines what requires dozens of lines with CMD (if it can do it at all).
• Most of the commands in TCC (such as COPY, DIR, DEL, MOVE, REN, START, etc.) have command dialogs that allow you to select filenames and options and see your command line before executing it. The most powerful Windows command shell is also the easiest to use!
• Create multithreaded batch files with the THREAD command.
• Take Command includes the V File Viewer, the best text and binary file viewer available for Windows. It includes bidirectional scrolling, hex listings, fixed and floating rulers, grid lines, extensive searching and printing features, and much more.
• Select or exclude files by date, time, size, owner, description, and extended wildcards or regular expressions for extraordinary flexibility in file and directory management.
• Specify multiple filenames for most file processing command prompt commands (i.e., COPY, DEL, DIR, MOVE, REN, etc.). COPY even supports multiple targets as well as multiple sources.
• The scripting language includes a complete set of flow control structures including IF-Then-Else, DO and FOR loops, SWITCH, subroutines, batch libraries, etc.
• Create and debug your batch scripts with the integrated IDE. The IDE includes tabbed edit windows and a sophisticated debugger with single stepping, conditional breakpoints, syntax coloring, tooltips, bookmarks, tabbed variable, watch, and call stack windows. Windows batch file programming has never been easier or more powerful!
• The built-in screen scrollback buffer lets you review or print command line output from past commands, and find text in any tabbed window.
• You can choose from multiple types of redirection, including redirecting and piping to STDERR, "here-document" and "here-string" redirection, and TEE and Y pipe fittings.
• Browse command line and directory history, filename and directory completion, and use numerous cut and paste options (even with Windows command line applications that have no internal cut and paste support) with the advanced line editor. All command line editing keys can be changed in the key definition dialog.
• Colorize your command prompt windows with TCC's configurable syntax colors, input, output, error, and selection colors, directory colorization, and ANSI x3.64 support.
• Customize filename completion for any internal or external command or alias. This allows Take Command to intelligently select and display filenames based on the command line you are entering.
• The optional command prompt input window (with full undo/redo) allows you to create and edit commands before sending them to the active tabbed command line windows.
• Send keystrokes to tabbed windows, command prompt windows, or GUI windows.
• Take Command can record and playback your keyboard and mouse actions.
• Find any file or directory on your system by entering only part of its name with extended directory searches. (Everything Search integration is optional.)
• You can access FTP and HTTP (including SSL and SSH) directories and files in all command line file-handling commands (COPY, DEL, MOVE, etc.).
• Send SMTP, SMPP, and SNPP messages from your batch files or the command line.
• TCC includes internal compression and extraction commands and variables for BZIP2, GZIP, JAR, TAR, ZIP, and 7ZIP files.
• Monitor your system's hardware and software events, and execute commands when an event is triggered. You can monitor the clipboard, directory changes event logs, network connections, processes, services, and USB and Firewire connections.
• Monitor your long-running processes and send notifications upon activity (or inactivity) in a tab window.
• Easily query the WMI (Windows Management Interface) to retrieve system configuration information.
• Expand your scripts with the internal support for PowerShell, Lua, Perl, REXX, Python, Tcl/tk, and any Active Scripting language. You can even combine multiple languages in your batch scripts.
• Create your own variables or commands with plugins, or use one of the many third-party plugin libraries.
• And many thousands more -- see our online help for all the details. 

Comparing CMD, Take Command, and TCC
CMD.EXE. is the Windows command processor that runs the commands you enter at the command prompt, and simple batch scripts (files with a .CMD or .BAT extension). CMD hasn’t changed much since its first appearance in Windows NT 3.1 in 1993.

Take Command combines the best features of the GUI and character-mode interfaces. You can have multiple console applications open in tabbed windows, with a Windows Explorer-like interface available for those times when you need a visual look at your folders and files.

Take Command is composed of four pieces which work closely together:

Take Command Environment - A rich development and operations environment that allows you to:

• Run multiple console and GUI applications simultaneously in tabbed windows, including our own Take Command Console (TCC), CMD, PowerShell and bash. Take Command will display output much faster (up to 5x) than running the application in a standard Windows console window.
• Cut and paste text.
• Drag and drop files into tab windows from an Explorer-like environment, other applications, or the desktop.
• Create and edit command scripts with a full featured editor, including syntax highlighting.
• Debug batch scripts with a sophisticated debugger, including single-stepping and conditional breakpoints.

Take Command Language - A mature scripting language based on and compatible with CMD, but massively enhanced. It includes:

• 265+ internal commands (CMD in Windows 11 has about 42)
• 440+ functions (CMD has 0)
• 340+ variables (CMD has 6)
• Hundreds of additional options for CMD commands
• Additional underlying capabilities, such as the ability to send email and access FTPS and HTTPS servers

Take Command Console (TCC) - A Windows command processor compatible with CMD (the default command processor in Windows 10 / 11 / 2016 / 2019 / 2022) but substantially enhanced with hundreds of new commands and thousands of additional features. TCC is included with Take Command, and is also available separately if you don't need the Take Command tabbed consoles interface. TCC provides the ability to:

• Edit the command line with a powerful editor, tab completion, command history, directory history, and command dialogs.
• Interactively run commands, such as DIR, COPY, etc.
• Run batch script files, such as .CMD, .BAT or .BTM files.
• Run batch scripts as background processes based on timed schedules or operational triggers, such as changes in the system environment.

And an Integrated IDE with tabbed edit windows and a batch file debugger (compatible with TCC or CMD batch files), that provides:

• Variable, alias, call stack, breakpoint, environment, and watch windows
• Tooltips that display command syntax or the current variable value
• Single stepping - step into, step over, step out
• Conditional breakpoints
• Syntax coloring (commands, variables, aliases, comments, operators, etc.)
• Bookmarks