Windows 7 Command Prompt – How to Widen the Window

By default, each line of the command prompt's buffer is only 80 characters wide. If a program produces an output line of more than 80 characters, it is split into multiple lines of the buffer, so there's no point to having a command prompt window more than 80 characters wide.

You can change the size of the buffer on XP by going to the system menu > Properties > Layout tab > Screen Buffer Size. I usually leave mine set at 500x999 because I hate the default line wrapping (I prefer scrolling). A side effect of this is that you can now maximize the window to the full screen size.

There are two parts to the answer.

The command shell option /k starts a new command prompt, runs some command (or a program, batch script, or group of commands) and the prompt remains rather than terminating.

In this case, the command is mode, which can be used to set the command prompt screen size/window buffer so it's 200 columns wide and 70 rows high.

Finally, if you want to change the default size of the command prompt, right click on the title bar, select 'Properties', and select the 'Layout' tab. You can set the size of the screen buffer and the window separately. The width should be the same for both. The screen buffer height setting determines how far back you can scroll.