set a variable with output from a command

Here's something I need to do in an NT shell command which is very simple in unix. I want to set a variable with the result of another command. On unix, I can say "curdir=`pwd`" and the value of curdir will be set to the result of the pwd (print working directory) command. In Windows shell scripting this appears to be impossible! Can someone suggest a workaround?

should find your answer here

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro.../shellscr.mspx

something like this?

The current prompt text is stored in the PROMPT environment variable. Changing the prompt changes the value of this variable and vice versa. Thus, these two commands have the same effect:

1. C:\>prompt [$p]
2. C:\>set PROMPT=[$p]

this as been quoted from that site