Sets the default console foreground and background colours.

syntax
      COLOR [background_attr][foreground_attr] 

key
      attr : Specifies colour attribute of console output 

Colour attributes are specified by TWO hex digits -- the first corresponds to the background; the second the foreground. Each digit can be any of the following values:

0 = Black
8 = Gray

1 = Blue
9 = Light Blue

2 = Green
A = Light Green

3 = Aqua
B = Light Aqua

4 = Red
C = Light Red

5 = Purple
D = Light Purple

6 = Yellow
E = Light Yellow

7 = White
F = Bright White

If no argument is given, COLOR restores the colour to what it was when CMD.EXE started.

Colour values are assigned in the following order:

The DefaultColor registry value.
The CMD /T command line switch
The current colour settings when cmd was launched

The COLOR command sets ERRORLEVEL to 1 if an attempt is made to execute the COLOR command with a foreground and background colour that are the same.

Examples:
"COLOR 17" is white on blue.
"COLOR 1c" is RED on blue. - use for error conditions
"COLOR 97" produces Wordperfect style white on a light blue screen.
"COLOR 9e" produces high contrast yellow on a light blue screen.
"COLOR 07" is white on black - the default.

"COLOR 00" is an invalid option and will set %ERRORLEVEL% to 1 (this fails on some early builds of NT 4 - see verify for an alternative method of raising an error)

"How much more black could this be?" and the answer is "None...none more black." - Spinal Tap

Related commands:

CMD - Start a new CMD shell

Equivalent Linux BASH commands:

dircolors - Colour setup for `ls'