• Robert (11/21/2008)


    On the contrary. CMD.exe is DOS. It will execute any well behaved DOS executable, so it provides complete DOC environment. At least 32bit version, 64bit version refuses to run any 16bit application, which DOS applications normally are.

    Additionally, it provides DOS compatible text mode console (terminal) for windows applications with all standard devices as stdin, stdout, stderr, nul, prn, lpt1, redirection, etc.

    Windows 3.x and older, 95, 98, ME were all graphics shell on top of DOS, while NT series does not depend on DOS.

    I beg to differ. If anything COMMAND.COM was the command line shell of DOS and CMD.EXE is that of Windows. It may be compatible with some legacy DOS apps (but not that many... hence the existence of dos emulators like DOSBOX etc.) but that doesn't mean it is the same thing.

    More info: wikipedia to the rescue