Cmd.exe - save all output/history?

I missed some cmd.exe output today and I would really have liked to know what that was. I know it wasn't malware, but that's not the point :)

Is there a way to make cmd.exe copy all it's output to a text file automatically or something similar that I could use to check back on what my system did there?

I already checked google, it said there's "no way". Only with powershell, but that's not exactly what I want because I don't really do a lot of that stuff, but I'd come back to it, if nobody knows anything else.

Do you want to copy output of a particular command or series of commands or do you want to make a global and permanent change, so that absolutely everything showing up in the command prompt window is copied?

In the former case, you can just use the "redirect" command. For example "dir" yields a list of files in a folder, "dir > d.txt" puts that list into the file "d.txt".

In the latter case, I don't know.

If the window pops up and goes away, there's no way that I'm aware of to save the output there. If the window is set to close after command execution (as it appears it is doing), the output has to be directed to a file at the time of the command execution. Eljay's suggestions work if the window/session stays open. However, it doesn't appear that is happening.

Does this occur on a regular basis or did it just happen one time? At what point does this occur?