Benjamin Lau wrote: > command.com changed to cmd.exe at some point in the last decade or > two... maybe that's an NT and later thing... >
Actually, they coexisted for a long time. NT did add cmd.exe as a native program but continued to include command.com for backward compatibility. Not surprisingly given the names, command.com is a 16-bit real mode DOS program and cmd.exe is a protected mode Win32 one. They understand a similar language, though cmd.exe extended it some. It seems that in recent years, 64-bit versions of Windows have finally dropped command.com. -- Jonathan Rogers
