My command prompt at work is all screwy.

1 - It doesn't seem to use the Path variable. For example, ping results in "not recognized as internal or external command". Strangely I can click the Environmental Variables button under the Advanced tab of System Properties, then click OK in the next window without actually changing anything and then when I re-open my command prompt it works ok. Any ideas as to why or how I can fix the underlying issue? It's a pain havng to do this every time I want to open my command prompt.

2 - I cannot resize my command prompt window. Maximizing simply moves the small window to the upper left corner of the screen. And I have no scroll bars! so I can't always view all of my output. Any ideas about how I can fix this?

I'm usually really good about figuring out this kind of stuff but I'm completely stumped. I've googled everything imaginable, looked at group policies, even tried to use regmon to find the registry keys that are acessed when I open a command prompt and I've gotten nowhere.

First, download and run either Mozilla or Opera and see if you have the same problems.
If they work well, uninstall IE and re-install or give it a miss all together.

could be that your user doesn't have the correct permissions for the paths

use the SET command to configure your environment

set path=c:\;c:\windows; ...
set prompt=$p$g

and so on

Another of the System Variables should be:
ComSpec with a value C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe
There seems to be no way to repair the command processor with a simple action, and seeing with ProcMon what is involved in merely opening a cmd window rather rules out a manual fix.

I'm sure I have the correct permissions. I'm a local admin. I can set the path variable in a command prompt but it only lasts for that single command prompt session. Next time I open a command prompt it's gone. The only way to make it persist is for me to go to Environmental Variables under System Properties and click OK even if I don't actually change anything, then it persists until I logoff. Really weird.

Regarding the other posts, I don't see how Internet browsers are going to affect my command prompt sessions. And my Comspec variable seems to persist without any problem. Seems to just be the Path variable. When I run the "set" command it lists all variables, including comspec. The only one that appears to be missing is Path until I do the trick I mentioned above.

Also, the missing scroll bars and the unsizable window are still an issue as well. I'm not confident anyone can suggest a valid fix (I'm totally stumped), but I figured I'd try and let someone prove me wrong

..which is where a Repair comes in... I assume you already tried copying in another cmd.exe.

This is actually a freshly built PC using the agency's latest "approved image". My previous box had the same issue (which I've been told had the previously "approved image"), and that is one of the reasons I requested this new PC. My freshly imaged laptop also has the same problem.

It doesn't matter whether I use my domain account or local computer account, same problem and there are no roaming profiles in play.

And I hadn't actually tried copying another cmd.exe, but I just did now (from a computer on which I just verified it's working correctly) and had the same problem.

When they created these latest images I can't image what configuration, registry, or policy settings they might have messed up. Or maybe something is simply corrupted on these images. Although I would expect corrupted files to exhibit different (probably worse) behavior, not to simply ignore the Path environment variable and prevent the resizing and scrolling of command prompts.

Ah.. okay.
Lessee... properties. Under layout tab set your Window Size to what you wish; I use width=85, height = 35. Next, to enable the sliders set the related Buffer Sizes to larger proportions. eg. if you wish to have a vertical slider set height to say, 300 - if this number is smaller than the Window Size height you will not have a slider. I use 300 height, 85 width. I suspect your maximisation problem arises because your buffer and window sizes are the same -maximising tries to set the window to the buffer size [limited by physical screen size, of course].
Still playing around here... gotta sort the path problem yet.

I should point out that any changes you make to the path via Set command in cmd window only last while that cmd window is open. How temporary is that? Permanent changes to your environment must be made via the lil Env Variables window that you know. Or into the reg keys directly. Just wondering if your User keys are different to the machine keys?
Your paths should be in here:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment
But if there is a path entry here: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Environment
..it would override the HKLM paths.
Still thinking...

No help?