Removing/hiding the Dos window at game start

Someone who recently looked at my game (Windows version) commented about the the Dos command prompt window which gets opened at game start, before OpenGl gets a chance to "make things pretty".

I gathered it was not what he expected, his first impression was obviously "its a Dos game, eek". First impressions do stick and I wandering if there is a way to suppress this ugly reminder of Dos or, plan B, get an almighty splash screen up before the Dos terminal window becomes visible?

Any thoughts?