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I'm working on Windows 7 using the cmd console. How do I hide the path in the prompt?

Mehper C. Palavuzlar
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Chris
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  • why do you want to? – soandos Jul 26 '11 at 16:38
  • real-estate ... – Chris Jul 26 '11 at 16:40
  • Sorry, dont follow. You mean you want to see more on the screen? – soandos Jul 26 '11 at 16:41
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    That's what he means, exactly. – cularis Jul 26 '11 at 17:01
  • -1 extremely badly worded, and maybe not even the best thing to do if you're bothered by a long current directory. A better thing might be prompt $p$_$g. So you still are reminded of the current directory but it's not in the way. And if you did want to hide the current directory, then it's not hiding the path it's hiding the current directory. And of course it can still be seen by CD if you meant hiding it from people. Your question is pretty bad. And adding the comment about "real-estate" shows no care to ensure clarity, and no ability to use proper terms, and no care about using proper terms – barlop Jul 26 '11 at 17:58
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    @barlop, I believe real estate is a fairly standard way to refer to the space available on the screen - e.g. http://www.bing.com/search?q=screen+real+estate&form=OPRTSD&pc=OPER – dsolimano Jul 26 '11 at 19:24
  • @dsolimano well he could've put that in his question, and anyhow, one can increase the size of the window if they want more "real-estate". and he meant current directory. he could've been specific and said the issue he has is when typing after the long prompt, the text wraps too soon when he's in a directory with a long path, so he wants to make the prompt smaller, so space -there-. All he asked in his question about was "hiding the path" well that could be hiding the PATH variable. It's a very badly worded question. very cavalier – barlop Jul 26 '11 at 19:35
  • possible duplicate of [Stopping command prompt from showing current directory in windows XP?](http://superuser.com/questions/35237/stopping-command-prompt-from-showing-current-directory-in-windows-xp) – JdeBP Nov 28 '11 at 20:15

3 Answers3

65

You can use

prompt [text]

command. Type prompt /? to list all of the available parameters. For example, the following command sets "> (greater-than sign)" as prompt.

prompt $g
li ki
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Mehper C. Palavuzlar
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9

The command prompt $g will indeed set the prompt to a single > sign. For a full list of special codes you can use there, see prompt /?.

If you want the custom prompt to apply automatically when you start a command prompt, you can set the PROMPT environment variable. That can be accomplished in the normal Windows UI, or by using the setx command. For example, this sets the prompt to > :

setx PROMPT $g$s

On the next launch of the command prompt, you'll see your new prompt.

To restore the normal Windows prompt for one session, type prompt. To restore the default for all sessions by removing the environment variable, type setx PROMPT "".

Ben N
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    This should be the accepted answer. Thanks @Ben N – Pramesh Bajracharya Jun 27 '17 at 03:12
  • typing `setx PROMPT $g$s` gives me `ERROR: Invalid syntax. Type "SETX /?" for usage.` – PandaWood Jun 01 '21 at 00:55
  • @PandaWood Make sure to run that in a classic command prompt (CMD) instead of PowerShell. The dollar signs indicate a PowerShell variable. Also please note that the `PROMPT` environment variable only affects CMD, not the PowerShell prompt. – Ben N Jun 01 '21 at 13:03
8

Some more tips:

If you want to go back to previous status (showing full path), just type prompt without any arguments, and press Enter. If you just want to see current working directory (the same as pwd in linux), type chdir or cd without any arguments and press Enter.

Canadian Luke
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Jack
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