The use of environment variables may seem like an esoteric (even incomprehensible) art to the “average user,” but even if you're not Dr. DOS, you might benefit from a little knowledge on the subject. Two environment variables you're probably already familiar with are PATH and PROMPT. These are special variables that are set with their own DOS commands (PATH and PROMPT, respectively) rather than the usual SET command, but they are environment variables nonetheless. You can use environment variables, including PATH and PROMPT, in batch files by simply enclosing the name of the variable in percent signs (e g , %PATH%). For example, you could create a file called STATUS.BAT containing the following lines: