How do I change the contents of the command prompt?

How can I permanently change the contents of the command prompt under Windows 7? I know about the prompt command, and the content options, but I'm not sure where to save the custom prompt so that it's used every time. Old web pages say autoexec.bat, but that seems to be an uneditable dummy file under 7.


Use the User Environment variables.

Right Click Computer --> Properties --> Advanced Settings --> Advanced --> Environment Variables

In the User variables box click "New..".

Name the variable "Prompt" (without quotes), and set it's value to what you want the prompt to be (refer to "prompt /?" at a command line).

OK --> OK

Open a command prompt (cmd) and it should use that prompt.

Tested in Windows 7, and it still works like it did in NT 4 :)

Hope that helps...


I found some instructions here: http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Custom-Windows-Command-Prompt and here: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/autoruncmd.htm that let you customize your command prompt. Evidently there are several registry keys that let you modify the default behavior of cmd.