How to change Screen buffer size in Windows Command Prompt from batch script

Question

I know you can do right click properties - layout and there change it manually   But how would you go about changing it from a Windows batch script   I know you can change size of it from script using something like this  MODE CON  COLS 90 LINES 10  But how can you change buffer size   The script will run for a while and sometimes before failing and exiting it takes some time  so I need larger buffer

User · Answer

Below is a very simple VB NET program that will do what you want   It will set the buffer to 100 chars wide by 1000 chars high  It then sets the width of the window to match the buffer size   Module ConsoleBuffer   Sub Main       Console WindowWidth   100     Console BufferWidth   100     Console BufferHeight   1000   End Sub End Module   UPDATE  I modified the code to first set Console WindowWidth and then set Console BufferWidth because if you try to set Console BufferWidth to a value less than the current Console WindowWidth the program will throw an exception   This is only a sample   you should add code to handle command line parameters and error handling

User · Answer

I have found a way to resize the buffer size without influencing the window size  It works thanks to a flaw in how batch works but it gets the job done   mode 648 78  gt nul 2 gt nul   How does it work  There is a syntax error in this command  it should be  mode 648  78   Because of how batch works  the buffer size will first be resized to 648 and then the window resize will come but it will never finish  because of the syntax error  Voila  buffer size is adjusted and the window size stays the same  This produces an ugly error so to get rid of it just add the   nul 2 nul  and you re done

User · Answer

There is no  DOS command prompt   DOS fully died with Windows ME  7 11 2006   It s simply called the Command Prompt on Windows NT  which is NT  2K  XP  Vista  7    There is no way to alter the screen buffer through built-in cmd exe commands  It can be altered through Console API Functions  so you might be able to create a utility to modify it  I ve never tried this myself   Another suggestion would be to redirect output to both a file and to the screen so that you have a  hard copy  of it  Windows does not have a TEE command like Unix  but someone has remedied that

User · Answer

You can change the buffer size of cmd by clicking the icon at top left corner -- properties --  layout --  screen buffer size   you can even change it with cmd command  mode con cols 100 lines 60  Upto lines   58 the height of the cmd window changes     After lines value of 58 the buffer size of the cmd changes

User · Answer

mode con lines 32766   sets the buffer  but also increases the window height to full screen  which is ugly   You can change the settings directly in the registry       escape the environment variable in the key name set mySysRoot   SystemRoot       655294544 equals 9999 lines in the GUI reg exe add  HKCU Console  mySysRoot  system32 cmd exe   v ScreenBufferSize  t REG DWORD  d 655294544  f     We also need to change the Window Height  3276880   50 lines reg exe add  HKCU Console  mySysRoot  system32 cmd exe   v WindowSize  t REG DWORD  d 3276880  f   The next cmd exe you start has the increase buffer   So this doesn t work for the cmd exe you are already in  but just use this in a pre-batch cmd which than calls your main script

User · Answer

If anyone is still wondering  on the newer versions of windows you can use powershell   powershell exe -command   amp    pshost   Get-Host  pswindow    pshost UI RawUI  newsize    pswindow BufferSize  newsize height   150  pswindow buffersize    newsize

User · Answer

I created the following utility to set the console size and scroll buffers   I compiled it using DEV C    http   www bloodshed net devcpp html     An executable is included in https   sourceforge net projects wa2l-wintools     include  lt iostream gt   include  lt windows h gt    using namespace std       SetWindow Width Height WidthBuffer HeightBuffer  -- set console size and buffer dimensions    void SetWindow int Width  int Height  int WidthBuffer  int HeightBuffer          COORD coord       coord X   WidthBuffer       coord Y   HeightBuffer         SMALL RECT Rect       Rect Top   0       Rect Left   0       Rect Bottom   Height - 1       Rect Right   Width - 1        HANDLE Handle   GetStdHandle STD OUTPUT HANDLE           Get Handle      SetConsoleScreenBufferSize Handle  coord                 Set Buffer Size      SetConsoleWindowInfo Handle  TRUE   amp Rect                 Set Window Size        SetWindow       main Width Height WidthBuffer HeightBuffer  -- main    int main int argc  char  argv               int width   80      int height   25      int wbuffer   width   200      int hbuffer   height   1000       if   argc    5            width   atoi argv 1            height   atoi argv 2            wbuffer   atoi argv 3            hbuffer   atoi argv 4          else if   argc  gt  1             cout  lt  lt   Usage     lt  lt  argv 0   lt  lt      width height bufferwidth bufferheight     lt  lt  endl  lt  lt  endl          cout  lt  lt     Where   lt  lt  endl          cout  lt  lt       width            console width   lt  lt  endl          cout  lt  lt       height           console height   lt  lt  endl          cout  lt  lt       bufferwidth      scroll buffer width   lt  lt  endl          cout  lt  lt       bufferheight     scroll buffer height   lt  lt  endl          return 4                 SetWindow width height wbuffer hbuffer       return 0

User · Answer

I was just giving a try for max lines on windows 7 i can set using mode con command and found it to be 32766 2 15-2 and you can set it with following command   mode con lines 32766   although you can set screen buffer size from the GUI too  but the max you can get is 9999

User · Answer

There s a solution at CMD  Set buffer height independently of window height effectively employing a powershell command executed from the batch script   This solution let me resize the scrollback buffer in the existing batch script window independently of the window size  exactly what the OP was asking for   Caveat  It seems to make the script forget variables  or at least it did with my script   so I recommend calling the command only at the beginning and   or end of your script  or otherwise where you don t depend on a session local variable

User · Answer

Here s what I did in case someone finds it useful  I used a lot of things according to the rest of the answers in this thread    First I adjusted the layout settings as needed  This changes the window size immediately so it was easier to set the exact size that I wanted  By the way I didn t know that I can also have visible width smaller than width buffer  This was nice since I usually hate a long line to be wrapped    Then after clicking ok  I opened regedit exe and went to  HKEY CURRENT USER Console   There is a new child entry there   SystemRoot  system32 cmd exe   I right clicked on that and selected Export    I saved this as  cmd settings reg   Then I created a batch script that imports those settings  invokes my original batch script  name batch script bat  and then deletes what I imported in order for the command line window to return to default settings   regedit  s cmd settings reg start  wait batch script bat reg delete  HKEY CURRENT USER Console   SystemRoot   system32 cmd exe   f   This is a sample batch that could be invoked   batch script bat      echo off echo test  pause exit   Don t forget the exit command at the end of your script if you want the reg delete line to run after the script execution

User · Answer

As a workaround  you may use     Windows Powershell ISE  As the Powershell script editor does not seems to have a buffer limitation in its read-eval-print-loop part  the  blue  part   And with Powershell you may execute DOS commands as well   PS  I understand this answer is a bit aside the original question  however I believe it is good to mention as it is a good workaround

User · Answer

I was just searching for an answer to this exact question  come to find out the command itself adjusts the buffer   mode con cols 140 lines 70   The lines 70 part actually adjusts the Height in the  Screen Buffer Size  setting  NOT the Height in the  Window Size  setting   Easily proven by running the command with a setting for  lines 2500   or whatever buffer you want  and then check the  Properties  of the window  you ll see that indeed the buffer is now set to 2500   My batch script ends up looking like this     echo off cmd  mode con cols 140 lines 2500

User · Answer

I know the question is 9 years old  but maybe for someone it will be interested furthermore  According to the question  to change the buffer size only  it can be used Powershell  The shortest command with Powershell is   powershell -command   amp   get-host  ui rawui buffersize   width 155 height 999       Replace the values of width and height with your wanted values   But supposedly the reason of your question is to modify the size of command line window without reducing of the buffer size  For that you can use the following command   start  b powershell -command   amp   w  get-host  ui rawui  w buffersize   width 177 height 999   w windowsize   width 155 height 55       There you can modify the size of buffer and window independly  To avoid an error message  consider that the values of buffersize must be bigger or equal to the values of windowsize    Additional implemented is the start  b command  The Powershell command sometimes takes a few seconds to execute  With this additional command  Powershell runs parallel and does not significantly delay the processing of the following commands

User · Answer

I m expanding upon a comment that I posted here as most people won t notice the comment   https   lifeboat com programs console exe is a compiled version of the Visual Basic program described at https   stackoverflow com a 4694566 1752929  My version simply sets the buffer height to 32766 which is the maximum buffer height available  It does not adjust anything else  If there is a lot of demand  I could create a more flexible program but generally you can just set other variables in your shortcut layout tab   Following is the target I use in my shortcut where I wish to start in the f directory   I have to set the directory this way as Windows won t let you set it any other way if you wish to run the command prompt as administrator    C  Windows System32 cmd exe  k  console  amp  cd  d c  f

[windows] How to change Screen buffer size in Windows Command Prompt from batch script

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