Microsoft is updating the Windows Console colors

For the first time in 20 years, the American multinational company Microsoft today declared that they are updating Windows Console colors. The default color values have been changed to improve legibility of darker colors on modern screens and to give the Console a more modern look and feel.

It will arrive on mainstream Windows 10 with Fall Creators Update. To see the new colors, you’ll need to clean install the build 16257 on their machine. If someone upgraded from a previous build, Windows will keep the legacy color scheme, because upgrades try to preserve system settings, with the console colors being among those preserved settings. Microsoft is planning to release a tool soon to update existing installs to use the new colors.

Screens & display technology, contrast ratio, and resolution have changed during the past 20 years. The default color scheme is rather hard to read. The bright blue color, in particular, is very hard to read or near-illegible on high contrast screens. The updated blue color is easier to read and more consistent with the colors used in other terminal apps.

New Default Scheme Details

Here is the legacy color scheme, and the new default scheme:

Additionally, the below table describes the color scheme change in terms of RGB values.