Should I use Cygwin Terminal and Cygwin Bash Shell or cygwin.bat?

I want to use Cygwin as a replacement to cmd.exe on Windows. When I search my Windows PC for Cygwin, I see two Cygwin programs that I can use...

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Cygwin Terminal runs C:\cygwin\bin\mintty.exe

Cygwin Bash Shell runs C:\Apps\cygwin\cygwin.bat (this bat file subsequently calls C:\Apps\cygwin\bin\bash.exe)

Both of them open up what seem like command windows that I can use. But which one should I use? Is there any difference between them?

Solution 1:

The "Cygwin Terminal" one runs Mintty, a terminal emulator installed by default by Cygwin.

The other one just executes bash.exe from within another shell (a Windows Command Prompt, another Mintty instance, RXVT).

They both run the same Cygwin setup. It's simply a matter of preference as Mintty is more customizable than the default Windows Command Prompt.

Example:

Example Mintty