winTerm

winTerm is an independent open-source Windows 11 terminal published by helloThisWorld. It is based on Microsoft Terminal source code but is not a Microsoft product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. It does not use Microsoft, Windows, or Windows Terminal logos.

Distribution

The primary distribution is an unpackaged, self-contained Inno Setup EXE. A Portable ZIP is also provided. For a version <version>, the only recommended application downloads are:

• winTerm-<version>-setup-x64.exe — current-user or all-users installation;
• winTerm-<version>-portable-x64.zip — extract and run without installation.

The current source version is 0.7.0-beta.5. Existing GitHub tags and Release assets are immutable; a release is published only from a new exact tag after all build, test, installation, re-download, and checksum gates pass. See the Releases page for assets that actually exist.

If a release is unsigned, its notes say so explicitly. Windows may display an Unknown Publisher or SmartScreen warning; verify SHA256SUMS.txt from the same Release. No MSIX certificate, Developer Mode, Visual Studio, Windows SDK, or Add-AppxPackage is required to install a release EXE.

See installation guidance and the current release notes.

Core features

• Top, Bottom, Left, and Right splits relative to the focused pane, retaining profile selection and transactional rollback;
• compact pane headers with a dedicated drag handle, pane title, focused state, overflow button, and Automatic/Always/Never visibility;
• a shared pane menu for directed split, close, zoom, pane settings, and move actions;
• Snap-style pane docking previews that reuse the existing docking transaction, rollback, session lease, and layout history systems;
• Move to New Tab with live session preservation; Move to New Window is visibly disabled where cross-process live transfer is unavailable;
• keyboard pane move mode, Command Palette actions, and screen-reader labels;
• independent %LOCALAPPDATA%\winTerm data and winterm.exe command registration without replacing Windows Terminal or wt.exe;
• PowerShell, CMD, dynamic WSL profile discovery, themes, private fonts, workspaces, snapshots, diagnostics, and multiline-paste protection.

Because Windows filenames are case-insensitive, the product-cased executable winTerm.exe is also directly invokable as winterm.exe. The installer uses an App Paths entry rather than globally editing PATH.

Portable mode

Extract the complete Portable ZIP to a writable directory and run winTerm.exe. The included portable.marker makes winTerm store settings, themes, workspaces, snapshots, logs, and updates under the adjacent data directory. Removing the marker switches data storage to %LOCALAPPDATA%\winTerm.

Portable mode does not modify the registry, create shortcuts, register an uninstaller, or require administrator access.

Build and test

Use PowerShell 7 and the Microsoft Terminal toolchain described in build guidance:

.\scripts\winterm\build.ps1 -Configuration Release -Platform x64 -IncludeTests
.\scripts\winterm\test.ps1 -Suite Relevant -Configuration Release -Platform x64
.\scripts\winterm\build-unpackaged.ps1 -Configuration Release -Platform x64
.\scripts\winterm\build-installer.ps1 -Version 0.7.0-beta.5 -Platform x64
.\scripts\winterm\build-portable.ps1 -Version 0.7.0-beta.5 -Platform x64

The unpackaged generator uses an unsigned MSIX only as an upstream build intermediate to produce the merged resource index. MSIX is not copied to the stage, release allowlist, or primary user installation flow.

Privacy and security

winTerm does not collect command text, terminal output, clipboard content, workspace contents, working directories, or usage analytics. Crash upload is off and opt-in. See PRIVACY.md, SECURITY.md, and SUPPORT.md.

License and upstream

winTerm preserves the Microsoft Terminal MIT license, copyrights, and third-party notices. The pinned upstream baseline is release-1.25@1cea42d433253d95c4487a3037db48197b5e72f4.

See LICENSE, NOTICE.md, THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md, and upstream synchronization.