# Portable Mintty for Julia

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/portable-mintty-for-julia/26822>\
**Category:** Tooling\
**Created:** [July 26, 2019, 5:27am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/portable-mintty-for-julia/26822 "2019-07-26T05:27:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![oif2003](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/oif2003/32/6022_2.png) [@oif2003](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/oif2003)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 5:27am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/portable-mintty-for-julia/26822/1 "2019-07-26T05:27:28Z")

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Hi,

While we wait for a better Windows Terminal, I’d like to share my setup with those who also want colored emoji support on Windows 10.

Requirements: Julia 1.x.x, 64bit Windows 10  
How to use it: Unzip and run startjulia.exe  
How it works: It uses an Autohotkey script to locate your latest installed copy of Julia 1.x.x, and renames the user folder inside \CygwinPortable\App\Runtime\Cygwin\Home to your current Windows user’s name so Mintty will function properly. It then starts Julia via Mintty with a Windows shell script. startjulia.exe is just a renamed copy of Autohotkey v2 H executable. The script is in startjulia.ahk.

 ![mintty_screenshot](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/original/3X/2/5/25fd441623b0d301d0156e2f92fde9db41eca432.png)  
[mintty.7z](https://github.com/oif2003/mintty-console-for-julia/raw/master/mintty.7z)

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**Author:** ![nilshg](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nilshg/32/2283_2.png) [@nilshg](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nilshg)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 8:43am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/portable-mintty-for-julia/26822/2 "2019-07-26T08:43:48Z")

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Just a note that a better Windows terminal is here and can by now be installed quite painlessly from the Microsoft store or via Chocolatey:

[https://github.com/microsoft/terminal](https://github.com/microsoft/terminal)

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**Author:** ![oif2003](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/oif2003/32/6022_2.png) [@oif2003](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/oif2003)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 9:37am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/portable-mintty-for-julia/26822/3 "2019-07-26T09:37:09Z")

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I installed Windows Terminal (Preview) but can’t get the emojis to work for some reason. Emojis have been working in VS Code and I know I can at least type them with the onscreen keyboard 👌. My json setting file also look like the ones I see online from the new terminal’s reviewers. I’ll try again later or wait for a future update.

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**Author:** ![oif2003](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/oif2003/32/6022_2.png) [@oif2003](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/oif2003)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/portable-mintty-for-julia/26822/4 "2019-07-26T20:47:13Z")

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Current version of Windows Terminal does not display emojis input in cmd or PowerShell, it shows the replacement character instead. It seems to work fine in Windows Subsystem for Linux.  
[https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/1503](https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/1503)

Things get worse in the REPL, the replacement character is shown instead of emojis everywhere. I hope they fix this soon.

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**Author:** ![davidanthoff](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/davidanthoff/32/223493_2.png) [@davidanthoff](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/davidanthoff)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 2:27am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/portable-mintty-for-julia/26822/5 "2019-07-27T02:27:25Z")

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Note that while now have a proper terminal on Windows, julia (or rather the julia specific version of libuv we are using) currently doesn’t use the modern console APIs on windows. That might explain some issues you might see with the new Windows Terminal and julia specifically.

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**Author:** ![stevengj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stevengj/32/71_2.png) [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2019, 3:26am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/portable-mintty-for-julia/26822/6 "2019-07-27T03:26:57Z")

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> [@davidanthoff](#):
>
> while now have a proper terminal on Windows

This has nothing to do with Julia or the libuv console APIs — in the linked issue they reproduced the same problem in PowerShell — not surprising, since Unicode rendering is really up to the terminal.  
Apparently Microsoft’s “modern” terminal still doesn’t support Unicode fallback fonts?