One of the oldest and most basic programs is certainly the command prompt (cmd.exe). One thing is certain, you still can’t do without the command prompt, and certainly being a developer.  I came across a nice tool, called Console, which enhances the command prompt. I have been using it for a couple of months now, and I really like it.

One of the things you should really customize is your PROMPT. More information about changing the PROMPT can be found here. Having, for example, your current directory path on a separate line is really useful. You can customize it through the environment variable called PROMPT, like Scott is doing, but I prefer passing it as a parameter to the cmd.exe. This way I can easily copy the application and no reboot is required. This can be done by the /k argument of the cmd.exe.

Here is a snippet of my XML configuration file for Console.

[xml]
<tab title="Console">
<console shell="cmd /k PROMPT $p$_$+$g" init_dir=""/>
<cursor style="11" r="255" g="255" b="255"/>
<background type="2" r="0" g="0" b="0">
<image file="" relative="0" extend="0" position="0">
<tint opacity="190" r="0" g="0" b="0"/>
</image>
</background>
</tab>
<tab title="cmd">
<console shell="cmd.exe /k PROMPT $p$_$+$g" init_dir=""/>
<cursor style="11" r="255" g="255" b="255"/>
<background type="0" r="0" g="0" b="0">
<image file="" relative="0" extend="0" position="0">
<tint opacity="0" r="0" g="0" b="0"/>
</image>
</background>
</tab>
<tab title="VS.NET 2005">
<console shell="cmd /k PROMPT $p$_$+$g &amp;&amp; C:\PROGRA~1\MID05A~1\VC\vcvarsall.bat" init_dir=""/>
<cursor style="0" r="255" g="255" b="255"/>
<background type="2" r="0" g="0" b="0">
<image file="" relative="0" extend="0" position="0">
<tint opacity="188" r="0" g="0" b="0"/>
</image>
</background>
</tab>
<tab title="PowerShell">
<console shell="C:\WINDOWS\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe" init_dir=""/>
<cursor style="0" r="255" g="255" b="255"/>
<background type="2" r="0" g="0" b="0">
<image file="" relative="0" extend="0" position="0">
<tint opacity="189" r="0" g="0" b="0"/>
</image>
</background>
</tab>
[/xml]

This is the result in Console