The Lagoon TechMy little blog in Cyberspace.

A while back, I read on a website that the Command Prompt on the NT-based versions of Windows are somehow from MS-DOS. This is a myth.

While the Command Prompt (cmd.exe) does copy the commands from the MS-DOS (command.com) command line, this does not make the Command Prompt in Windows NT in any way, shape, or form, related to MS-DOS.

For example, I could write a C#.Net console application that mimics Linux bash commands, but that would not make my application “bash”.  I am just mimicking the commands from bash. The same applies for the Command Prompt on the versions of Windows NT. The Command Prompt may use the same commands as the MS-DOS one, but that does not make it DOS.

Here is a bit of information some people may find interesting.

32-bit Windows NT operating systems (e.g., WinXP, WinVista) can run DOS programs due to having a built-in 16-bit “NT Virtual Dos Machine” otherwise known as NTVDM. This allows people to run DOS programs (even full-screen ones) without much problems.

However the 64-bit versions of Windows do not have NTVDM. For the 64-bit Windows operating systems, an emulator (e.g., DOSBox) is required to run DOS programs.