Console-related delusions
To treat PuTTY, mintty and others as ‘console applications’.
Simplifying, the ‘console application’ is an executable which
interacts with user via data input/output (mainly text). ‘Console
application’ is not able to ‘draw’ anything, it has not graphical
interface at all. It works with input/output streams only
(redirection, pipes, magic symbols <, >, |).
cmd /? > cmd.log & type cmd.log | find "HKEY"
When ‘console application’ starts in Windows the special console window is created and that very window do all text drawing, which ‘console application’ was printed, and that window redirects user keypresses into ‘console application’ input buffer. This console window is often called (local) terminal.
PuTTY, KiTTY, mintty and other terminals ARE NOT ‘console applications’. They are graphical applications (have their own graphical interfaces) able to connect to remote servers to run ‘console applications’ remotely, or they are working as local terminals allowing input/output ability to ‘console applications’ on your local PC.
You can’t redirect terminal “output” into any local file because terminal is working with display and keyabord but not any input/output streams. The only exception is logging specially configured in that exact terminal.
To name standard Windows console - ‘cmd.exe’.
Windows has its own terminal (or ‘console window’) which is often erroneously called ‘cmd.exe’. Just press Win+R and run, for example, “powershell.exe”. You will not see “cmd.exe” in the started process tree. In different Windows versions different executables create console window, just now it is “conhost.exe”.
Not ‘cmd.exe’, just a ‘console’!
