How to Change Command Prompt Color Scheme in Windows 10

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update is the latest version of Windows, it also paved the way for the easy customization of the Command Prompt.

In this updated version of Command Prompt, Microsoft is changing the default color values to improve the text legibility on modern high-contrast monitors. Also, it's now possible to customize the console with an entirely new color scheme for a more modern look and feel.

The only caveat is that you'll only see the new colors if you are running a clean installation of Windows 10. If you're using an upgrade, to preserve your old settings, the legacy colors will be applied instead. However, Microsoft has released a tool to install the new color scheme along with many others to personalize your experience.

In this Windows 10 tutorial, we'll walk you through the steps to customize Command Prompt with a new color scheme, and we even tell you how to get more schemes from the web.

Here's How:

1. Download the Microsoft Color Tool from GitHub (click the colortool.zip link to get the tool).

2. Unzip the content of the colortool.zip compressed file.

3. Open the Command Prompt by typing cmd.exe into Start Screen or Start Menu, right-click on Cmd.exe, and open it as an administrator.

4. Type the following command to navigate to the folder that contains the Color Tool executable and press Enter:



In the above command, make sure to change c:\pathto\colortool with the path to the folder where you extract the "colortool" folder.

5. Type the following command to change the Command Prompt color scheme and press Enter:





Replace the scheme-name with the name of the color scheme you want to use. You can figure out the name of the colors available in the "schemes" folder inside the "colortool" folder.

The -b switch is optional, but it makes the scheme you choose the system default. Otherwise, you'll only see the new colors when opening the Windows Console using the Start menu or Run command.

6. Right-click Command Prompt's title bar, and click Properties.



7. In the "Properties" section, you don't need to change any settings; you simply need to click OK to apply the changes.

Once you've completed the steps, restart Command Prompt to start using the console with the new color scheme.

At any time, if you want to go back to the new default color settings, you can apply the campbell scheme, or use the cmd-campbell scheme to go back to the legacy colors.

Open project found in GitHub that offers more than 150 color schemes that you can use with Command Prompt.

If you want to use these schemes, do the following.

1. Download iTerm2-Color-Schemes from GitHub (click the green Clone or download button and select Desktop ZIP).

2. Unzip the content of the iTerm2-Color-Schemes.zip compressed file.

3. Open the schemes folder inside the iTerm2-Color-Schemes uncompressed folder.

4. Select everything inside schemes folder (Ctrl + A) and copy the content (Ctrl + C).



6. Open the schemes folder inside the colortool folder and paste the files (Ctrl + V).

After completing the steps, you can apply any one of those color schemes using above instructions.