If all you want to do is fix the minibuffer prompt like I did (defaults to dark blue on black in Cygwin emacs in a terminal) try editing the minibuffer-prompt face using this:
- M-x list-faces-display
- select "minibuffer-prompt" and hit enter
- Go to foreground property and put your cursor over the [ Choose ] area and hit enter
- scroll down to "green" and hit enter
- Go up to [ Save for future sessions ] and hit enter (this will write it to your .emacs file)
This is what it added to mine:
(custom-set-faces
;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
'(minibuffer-prompt ((t (:foreground "green"))))