Answer : Below are some nice console-replacements products that are more user-friendly than cmd. As commented below, since Windows 7, all these shells are just an interface to conhost.exe, even powershell. For details, read What is conhost.exe and Why Is It Running. Therefore, the consoles below only replace the default visual interface to conhost which is the one exhibited by cmd, and are only useful when directly invoked as programs. They cannot be indirectly invoked, as when a console-executable such as diskpart is run, since this will invoke conhost, and conhost has its own I/O interface and API. Here is what Microsoft says in Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2: Console Host : ConHost represents a permanent change in the way that console application I/O is handled. There is no registry key or group policy setting that can force Windows to revert back to “legacy mode” console behavior. The conclusion is that if you wish to replace the console in a deeper way t...