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Command Prompt ○˒｜Definition｜1st｜20251119205401-00-⌔
cmd.exe
cmd.exe, also known as Command Prompt or Windows Command Processor, is a shell program on later versions of Windows (NT and CE families), OS/2,1 eComStation, ArcaOS, and ReactOS.2 In some versions of Windows (CE.NET 4.2,3 CE 5.04 and Embedded CE 6.05) it is referred to as the Command Processor Shell. Implementation differs between operating systems, but with significant consistency of behavior and available commands.
Older, related operating systems, DOS and Windows 9x, provided COMMAND.COM as the shell. cmd.exe replaced COMMAND.COM in the Windows product line with the introduction of NT. Current versions of Windows include PowerShell as an alternative shell that runs side-by-side with cmd.exe.
The initial version of cmd.exe for Windows NT was developed by Therese Stowell.6 Windows CE 2.11 was the first embedded Windows release to support a console and a Windows CE version of cmd.exe.7 The ReactOS implementation of cmd.exe is derived from FreeCOM, the FreeDOS command line interpreter.2
Printed 2026-06-28.
Link to original Footnotes
“Notes on using the default OS/2 command processor (CMD.EXE)”. www.tavi.co.uk. ↩
“Command Processor Shell (Windows CE.NET 4.2)”. Microsoft Docs. June 30, 2006. Archived from the original on August 31, 2022. ↩
“Command Processor Shell (Windows CE 5.0)”. Microsoft Docs. September 14, 2012. Archived from the original on August 28, 2022. ↩
“Command Processor Shell (Windows Embedded CE 6.0)”. Microsoft Docs. 2012. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022. ↩
Zachary, G. Pascal (1994). Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft. The Free Press. ISBN 0-02-935671-7. ↩
Douglas McConnaughey Boling (2001). Programming Microsoft Windows CE (2nd ed.). Microsoft Press. ISBN 978-0735614437. ↩
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