Solved Multiple command windows?

Working on a fairly new W11 laptop (<2mo), I tried to open a second command prompt window, like was possible in previous versions of windows, but with W11 I get the border of the 2nd command window, but the inside just shows what's behind the window (see the screen shot below). My questions .. does W11, out of the box, allow one to run multiple command windows? If it does, does anyone have a suggestion why it is failing on this machine and if it's not possible, is there a way to enable this?

I've tried opening a 2nd command window via the right click context menu (I have installed the "add command prompt here" reg fix) and also via start/run. Both have the same result.



You can see the border of the command prompt window, but inside the window all one can see is what's underneath the window (in this case an empty folder and part of the desktop). The 'x' in the file menu does not work, but the window can be closed via the taskbar.

Make sure you have no corrupt system files that is causing this problem. Open a command prompt as administrator and type dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
When complete restart. Then open command prompt as admin again and run sfc /scannow
Pay attention to the scan results to see if SFC found anything it could not repair

Perform a clean boot to eliminate software conflict causing the issue. If it doesn't happen in a clean boot, you have some software conflicting with Windows. You have to use process of elimination to find which one. Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 11 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts Tutorial

Yes, you should be able to open multiple terminals, either cmd or PowerShell or whatever.

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You may need to repair the Terminal. Settings | Apps | Installed Apps. Scroll to Terminal, hit the three dots, Advanced, then look for the Repair button. If that fails, try Reset.

Yes I can do it.

This looks like a modified desktop, have you done any "debloating" to remove Recall or Client.CBS?

garlin said:

This looks like a modified desktop, have you done any "debloating" to remove Recall or Client.CBS?

Click to expand...

I call that a Titus Tidy-Up.

Strange .. I closed the original command window, then tried opening two command windows and it worked. I was running something in one of the windows previously, hence the desire to open another one, something I’ve done many times in W10. The first window was compiling a python script into an executable and then downloading a large (about 1.6G) file. Once I closed that window, I could open multiple command windows. Unless it happens again, I'm presuming the inability to open a 2nd command window was due to python.

I regularly run dism & SFC. I'll run them again tomorrow, just in case (don't have the pc in question with me now).

As for the comments about the desktop, it's not a screen shot of the whole screen. Most of what is visible in the screen shot is the open folder sitting behind the faulty command window. I have done a lot of debloating, but that's been branded bloatware bundled with the laptop, not windows components. Disabling windows bloatware can often come back to bite you. F'instance, in my experience it often generates claims of 'corruption' when you run sfc which then reinstalls the said bloat.

Probably some conflict with the script it was running.