Windows Tip Sheet

Personal Prompts

Customize the CMD prompt with computer and user names.

• By Jeffery Hicks
• 12/19/2007

[SAPIEN\JEFF] C:\Windows>
[VISTADESK02] C:\Windows>

To try these out, open a command prompt and type:

Prompt [%userdomain%\%username%] $P$G

This should give you a prompt that looks like my first example. Don't worry -- right now this is only temporary. If you close and reopen your command prompt you'll get the "old" prompt back. To get the second prompt example, use this:

Prompt [%computername%] $P$G

Or, what about adding something like this:

Prompt %computername% $V $P$G

You should get something that looks like this:

VISTADESK01 Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000] C:\Users\Jeff>

These are but a few examples. Take a look at help for the prompt command to see other options.

How do you make this permanent every time you open a command prompt? First, copy the prompt command to a text file and save it as a batch file. Next, edit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor. If you don't have a registry key called AutoRun, add it as type REG_SZ and enter the full path and filename to your prompt batch file as its value.

The next time you open a command window, the batch file will run and you'll have a custom and personalized prompt.