Prerequisites

• Write a descriptive title.
• Make sure you are able to repro it on the latest released version
• Search the existing issues.
• Refer to the FAQ.
• Refer to Differences between Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell.

Steps to reproduce

As discussed in #18771 and #19395, which were inappropriately closed, as well as in #19101 (comment):

Note:

• Applies to conhost.exe windows (regular console windows on Windows) only.

  • Note:
    • If the following manual opt-in was performed in a prior session, the problem does not occur - but this opt-in shouldn't be necessary, and wasn't up to v7.2.x:
      • Having manually set the VirtualTerminalLevel value in registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console to 1
    • Conversely, this opt-in is an effective workaround, but note that it takes effect system-wide (for the current user).

• The problem is related to PowerShell's selective disabling and re-enabling of ANSI control sequences, and may be related to a recent optimization: see Use NotifyEndApplication to re-enable VT mode instead of doing it in InputLoop.Run #16612

• It should be obvious that this is not a conhost.exe problem, given that, on an affected machine, running the same command in the current LTS version, 7.2.10, works fine.

• Implementing Consider implicitly activating VT / ANSI escape-sequence support for native programs in conhost.exe console windows on Windows #19101 would make this problem go away, but this opportunity was passed up.

cmd /c ver | Select-String Microsoft

Expected behavior

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.22621.1413]

... with the word Microsoft highlighted

Actual behavior

←[7mMicrosoft←[0m Windows [Version 10.0.22621.1413]

That is, the ANSI escape sequences meant to highlight the matching part of the line aren't rendered as such.

Error details

No response

Environment data

PowerShell 7.4.0-preview.2 on Windows

Visuals

No response