The Windows terminal colour schemes throughout the years, made for Chris Kempson's base16 theme building architecture. For the true Windows-emulating experience be sure to use the Consolas font with letter spacing set to -1 and unbolden your prompt!
Windows NT provides the highest contrast of the generations, with Windows 95 suffering from low contrast blacks and Windows 10 suffering from low contrast literally everywhere else. The Windows 10 theme is not recommended and is only included for completeness.
The High Contrast theme combines the NT dark palette with the 95 bright palette giving the highest contrast combination between all dark and bright colours except for bright white, which is slighter dimmer than the NT bright white.
The Base16 framework replaces dark colours with their bright counterparts in dark schemes and vice versa in light schemes to ensure high contrast against the background. An example of the result of this effect for each theme can be seen in their respective sections below.
This palette was used in Windows 95, 98, and ME.
The 95 palette with the dark and light colours inverted.
This palette was used in Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10 (up to build 16256).
The NT palette with the dark and light colours inverted.
This palette has been in use from Windows 10 build 16257 onward.
The 10 palette with the dark and light colours inverted.
This theme has never been used by Microsoft for a version of Windows, it is just a combination of the NT dark palette and the 95 bright palette.
The High Contrast palette with the dark and light colours inverted.
