btop4win Review: A Terminal System Monitor for Windows, Installation and Usage

btop4win is an open-source Windows port of btop++, a terminal system monitor for Linux and macOS. From a single Command Prompt or Windows Terminal window, it shows your CPU, memory, disks, network, processes and even Windows services as graphs and lists. You unzip an archive of about 1 MB and run it right away, and as of November 12, 2026, the project has 2,080 stars on GitHub. This review covers what btop4win is and how to install and use it, based on the repository's README, release notes, official screenshots and package manager listings. I did not run or benchmark the program myself; everything here comes from the documentation and the official screenshots.

Screenshot: Img folder of the aristocratos/btop4win GitHub repository, Apache License 2.0

Key Takeaways

• What it is: A terminal system monitor for Windows. It puts the information Task Manager shows onto a single graph-based screen you control with the keyboard and mouse.
• Latest version: v1.0.5 (October 12, 2025), licensed under Apache 2.0.
• Two packages: A standard build that runs without admin rights, and an LHM build that also shows GPU stats and CPU temperatures but requires admin rights.
• Installation: Unzip and run, or install with winget install aristocratos.btop4win or scoop install btop.
• Drawbacks: Updates are rare; v1.0.5 arrived three years after v1.0.4 (October 2022). The default tty graphs display fine with the CMD font, but you need a different font for the denser braille and block graphs.

What Is btop4win?

btop4win is the Windows version of btop++, created by the developer aristocratos. btop++ is a C++ rewrite that follows two earlier tools by the same developer: bashtop, written as a shell script, and bpytop, its Python remake. Work on btop4win began in March 2022, and v1.0.0 shipped in August of the same year.

The official screenshots show the screen split into four boxes. The CPU box at the top holds an overall usage graph and per-core usage (the LHM build, covered below, also shows temperatures). The lower left has memory and disks, with network upload and download graphs beneath them. In the process list at the lower right, you can select a program to see its details or end it.

Here is what you need to run it:

• To use it in the default Command Prompt (CMD), you need Windows 10 version 1607 (Anniversary Update) or later. That version is needed for CMD to handle the color and cursor control codes (ANSI escape sequences) that btop4win uses.
• It also runs on Windows 7 and later, but in that case you need a separate terminal program with ANSI support.
• The latest Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (x64) must be installed.

Key Features

Grouping the features listed in the README gives this overview:

Starting and stopping Windows services is a feature added specifically for the Windows version. The screenshot below shows the process box switched to the service list.

Screenshot: Img folder of the aristocratos/btop4win GitHub repository, Apache License 2.0

Standard or LHM Build: Which One Should You Download?

The releases page offers two zip files. The difference is whether they include LibreHardwareMonitor (LHM), which reads hardware sensors.

If you want to see CPU temperature or graphics card usage, pick the LHM build. If you lack admin rights, as on many work PCs, or just want something lightweight, the standard build is the better fit. Note that the README's v1.0.5 news entry says LHM was updated to 0.9.4 but that the Windows 11 issue, where antivirus software flags the program as a virus at launch, has not been fixed yet (as of November 12, 2026).

How to Install btop4win

Download It Directly

1. Install the latest Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (x64).
2. Download btop4win-x64.zip or btop4win-LHM-x64.zip from the GitHub releases page.
3. Extract the archive to any folder and run btop4win.exe. It is a portable program with no installer.

Install With a Package Manager

# winget (standard build, run with the btop command after installing)
winget install aristocratos.btop4win

# Scoop (standard build / LHM build)
scoop install btop
scoop install btop-lhm

The winget listing carries the standard (x64) build at v1.0.5. It installs the Visual C++ Redistributable as a dependency and sets the program up to launch with the btop command. The Scoop Main bucket lists both btop (standard) and btop-lhm (LHM), each at v1.0.5.

Set Up Your Font and Terminal

If the graphs show up as garbled characters, the font is usually the cause. To stay compatible with the default CMD font, btop4win starts with its graph symbols in the simple tty mode. The denser braille or block graphs need a font that contains those characters. The README recommends Microsoft's Cascadia Code font together with Windows Terminal (which comes with Windows 11).

Basic btop4win Usage

Common Shortcuts

Press F1 or h to see the full list of shortcuts. These are the keys worth learning first, picked from the help screen (v1.0.0 screenshot).

Screenshot: Img folder of the aristocratos/btop4win GitHub repository, Apache License 2.0

Command-Line Options

There are only a few options available when you launch it from the command line.

Config File

You can change almost every setting from the in-app options menu (F2). Your changes are saved to btop.conf in the same folder as btop4win.exe, and the file is created automatically on first launch if it does not exist. If you want to edit it by hand, these are the main entries to know:

color_theme = "Default"   # Theme name from the themes folder
update_ms = 1500          # Update interval (ms); the README recommends 2000 or higher
graph_symbol = "tty"      # "braille", "block", "tty"
shown_boxes = "cpu mem net proc"
proc_tree = False         # Process tree view
vim_keys = False          # Use h, j, k, l as arrow keys

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Small download, no installer. It is portable: you extract a roughly 1 MB zip file and run it, and settings are saved in the same folder. That said, every PC you run it on needs the Visual C++ Redistributable, and the LHM build needs admin rights.
• Lots of information on one screen. Without hopping between Task Manager tabs, you can watch per-core CPU status, free space and speed for each disk, network speed and the process list all at once.
• Main actions are keyboard-driven. According to the help screen, menus, sorting, filtering and ending processes all have shortcuts, and the mouse is supported too.
• It even handles services. You can start and stop services and change their startup type from the same screen.

Cons

• Updates are rare. It took three years to get from v1.0.4 (October 2022) to v1.0.5 (October 2025), and as of November 12, 2026, there are 37 open issues and PRs.
• GPU and temperature data require admin rights. The standard build does not show this information at all.
• You need the right font for it to look its best. In the default CMD it starts with simple graphs, so to get the dense graphs btop is known for, you have to change your font and terminal.
• Antivirus false positives may still occur. The v1.0.5 news entry in the README (the LHM 0.9.4 update) says the Windows 11 false-positive issue is not yet resolved (as of November 12, 2026).

Who Is It For?

• Anyone who wants to see more at a glance than Task Manager offers
• btop users on Linux who want the same view on Windows
• Anyone who wants CPU temperature and GPU usage in a terminal pane while gaming or rendering (LHM build; see above about running as administrator and possible antivirus false positives)

Summary

btop4win brings the look and controls of btop++ to Windows as a small system monitor that needs no installation. Unzip it and it is ready to go, and it adds Windows-specific features such as service management. Still, it helps to know going in that updates come slowly and that sensor data requires the LHM build and admin rights. A sensible approach is to start with the standard build via winget or Scoop to see whether you like the interface, then switch to the LHM build if you need temperatures and GPU data.

Sources

• GitHub, aristocratos/btop4win repository information (star count, open issue and PR count, themes folder) and README (features, requirements, shortcuts, config file, screenshots), plus the releases list (v1.0.4 and v1.0.5 dates, package lineup, download counts), accessed November 12, 2026
• winget, aristocratos.btop4win 1.0.5 manifest, accessed November 12, 2026
• Scoop Main bucket, btop, btop-lhm, accessed November 12, 2026
• The three screenshots in this post (including the cover image) come from the Img folder of the aristocratos/btop4win repository and are licensed under the Apache License 2.0.