How can I open the terminal in Visual Studio?

Question

Visual Studio 2022/2019

Now Visual Studio has a built-in terminal:

Menu View → Terminal (Ctrl + ")

To change the default terminal

Menu Tools → Options → Terminal → Set As Default

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Before Visual Studio 2019

From comments, the best answer is from Hans Passant.

1. Add an external tool.

   Menu Tools → External Tools → Add

   Title: Terminal (or name it yourself)

   Command = cmd.exe or Command = powershell.exe

   Arguments = /k

   Initial Directory = $(ProjectDir)

2. Menu Tools → Terminal (or whatever you put in title)

3. Enjoy!

You can have an integrated terminal inside Visual Studio using one of these extensions:

Whack Whack Terminal

Terminal: CMD or PowerShell

Shortcut: Ctrl + </kbd>, Ctrl + </kbd>

Supports: Visual Studio 2017

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BuiltinCmd

Terminal: CMD or PowerShell

Shortcut: CtrlShiftT

Supports: Visual Studio 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019

As a tricky solution, you can use Package Manager Console to execute CMD or PowerShell commands.

Shortcut for Package Manager Console: Alt + T, + N, O

Tested on Visual Studio 2017 Community version.

Also it's available now as part of Visual Studio version 16.3 Preview 3

The shortcut is Ctrl + `, the same as Visual Studio Code.

New in the most recent version of Visual Studio, there is menu View → Terminal, which will open a PowerShell instance as a Visual Studio dockable window, rather than a floating PowerShell or CMD instance from the Developer Command Prompt.

Microsoft just included an integrated Windows Terminal in Visual Studio version 16.3 Preview 3. Go to menu Tools → Options → Preview Features, enable the Experimental VS Terminal option and restart Visual Studio.

Say hello to the new Visual Studio terminal!