Transparent Command Prompt in Vista?

Is it possible to have a slightly transparent command prompt window in Vista or Windows 7?

Are they any 3rd party alternatives?

I like Console, It supports transparency as well as tabbed command prompts.

If you're looking for a glassy, aero effect, you can use Glass CMD.

To make all your currently running cmd and powershell windows transparent, run this in a powershell terminal (windows opened after you run this, will not be transparent and your system will not be modified):

$user32 = Add-Type -Name User32 -Namespace Win32 -PassThru -MemberDefinition '[DllImport("user32.dll")]public static extern int GetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex);[DllImport("user32.dll")]public static extern int SetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex, int dwNewLong);[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]public static extern bool SetLayeredWindowAttributes(IntPtr hWnd, uint crKey, int bAlpha, uint dwFlags);'
Get-Process | Where-Object { @('powershell', 'cmd') -contains $_.ProcessName } | % {$user32::SetWindowLong($_.MainWindowHandle, -20, ($user32::GetWindowLong($_.MainWindowHandle, -20) -bor 0x80000));$user32::SetLayeredWindowAttributes($_.MainWindowHandle, 0, 200, 0x02)}

To make your powershell terminal windows always transparent (this alters your user-specific powershell profile file):

if (-not Test-Path -Path $profile) { New-Item -path $profile -type file -force }
Add-Content -Path $profile -Value '$user32 = Add-Type -Name ''User32'' -Namespace ''Win32'' -PassThru -MemberDefinition ''[DllImport("user32.dll")]public static extern int GetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex);[DllImport("user32.dll")]public static extern int SetWindowLong(IntPtr hWnd, int nIndex, int dwNewLong);[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]public static extern bool SetLayeredWindowAttributes(IntPtr hWnd, uint crKey, int bAlpha, uint dwFlags);'''
Add-Content -Path $profile -Value 'Get-Process | Where-Object { @(''powershell'', ''cmd'') -contains $_.ProcessName } | % { $user32::SetWindowLong($_.MainWindowHandle, -20, ($user32::GetWindowLong($_.MainWindowHandle, -20) -bor 0x80000)) | Out-Null;$user32::SetLayeredWindowAttributes($_.MainWindowHandle, 0, 200, 0x02) | Out-Null }'

Transparent Command Prompt in Vista?

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