More colors in CMD prompt / Batch file

Question

The Windows's default command prompt only supports 16 colors. For some users who need to output colored text art, this amount of colors is definitely not enough.

Are there any methods to use more colors in a command prompt?

Edits:

@DavidPostill mentioned the Windows 10's 24-bit console. However, I need it to work from Windows 7. He also suggested to install an alternate command prompt, which I will take into consideration.

@Eistein1969 answered, it is possible by editing registry. Unfortunately, registry editing is disabled in one of my systems, and I couldn't find the manual option either.

Answer 1

There is no way to use more than 16 colors in Windows versions previous to Win 10. However, if the purpose is show colored ASCII art, then there is an option.

Each position in the screen is comprised of the combination of a character in foreground color over the background color. Different characters that are formed by different numbers of pixels are perceived as different colors when they are displayed over the same background; this effect depends on both the number and layout of the pixels that form each character. This technique is known as dithering.

Although the procedure to find the right combination of characters that allows to show the major number of different colors is annoying, the results may be very good. For example:

You may review a detailed explanation of the method used to create previous image at this post.