I tried doing what you do and it runs the terminal, which I know nothing about.  I closed it in the following way:
I opened the system menu with alt space.  I either down arrowed or up arrowed to close and pressed enter.  The terminal closed and I was back in Windows.  You can also use c in the menu to close the terminal instead of arrowing to close, as follows:
alt space
type c.
Gene
-----Original Message-----
*From:* Gene <mailto:gsasner@gmail.com>
*Sent:* Saturday, November 27, 2021 9:33 PM
*To:* nvda@nvda.groups.io <mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io>
*Subject:* Re: [nvda] NVDA Portable Start
I’m not sure what is going on.  When you say it won’t exit to Windows, have you tried typing exit and pressing enter?  While convenient, you don’t have to use a batch file.  If necessary, I’ll discuss how to run NVDA without one.
Gene
-----Original Message-----
*From:* Howard Traxler <mailto:htraxler7@gmail.com>
*Sent:* Saturday, November 27, 2021 7:09 PM
*To:* NVDA <mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io>
*Subject:* [nvda] NVDA Portable Start
I have a portable copy of "NVDA on a thumb drive in a folder called
NVDA211.  It contains NVDA version 2021.1.  When I shut down my
installed NVDA, switch to the thumb drive and execute a batch file that
starts the portable version, it starts in a command mode that does not
accept commands; nor will it exit back to windows. This does not seem
normal to me.  Wonder how I can make it stay in windows when I start the
portable?

Thanks.

Howard