Control console font & layout used by C# .NET console application

Question

How can I set Windows (or Visual Studio, or my application) so that when I run a console app by hitting F5 from Visual Studio 2010, I can get a 120x50 layout with my choice of font, instead of the 80x25 standard CMD/DOS window?

(even better - anyone know how I can get VS to run console apps in something like Console2 or bash instead of cmd.exe ?)

Answer 1

Run a program from VS as normal (ctrl-f5, or f5, or whatever) and then from the system menu (click the icon in the upper-left corner of the window), choose "Defaults". Alter your settings as you like, and save them. From then on, new windows should be launched according to those settings.

As for running your program in something other than "cmd.exe", you should be aware that "cmd.exe" is not involved at all in the window. The window is a normal console window, and "cmd.exe" didn't create it. In the same vein, "bash" wouldn't be involved, because that's a command shell, not a windowing program.

Cmd.exe and bash (and a whole host of others, including 4nt, command.com, and everything along those lines) are not windowing programs, and they don't create windows. They're console-mode programs, and Windows automatically creates special "console" windows for them to run in. Windows knows they're console-mode programs because there's a flag in the .exe file (which is a file format called PE) that specifies what type of application it is.

Console2 is a program that hosts console applications, and in theory could be used, if Console2 allows you to start it and an external program at the same time. In your project properties, under the "Debug" tab, change the "Start Action" option to "Start external program:" and type in the command line that will start Console2 and your program together.