Older Windows operating systems require COMMAND.COM to boot, which is not the case with Windows NT, 2000, and XP. COMMAND.COM is the MS-DOS command interpreter that’s been around for ages. Both open what appear to be identical windows, but the differences are critical to how you use the command line. From the Run dialog box, you can type either command or cmd. Windows NT, 2000, and XP differ from Windows 9x in that there are actually two different ways to get to the command line. Some of the discussion that follows will not necessarily hold true in previous versions of Windows. This article is written for Windows NT, 2000, or XP.
This Drill Down will show you what you can do to improve the command prompt experience.
However, there are instances when the command line is your only option for troubleshooting certain tasks, such as ping and tracert diagnostics. For the most part, using the GUI is the way to go-after all, few users would call the command line intuitive to work with. Although we don’t see the command line as much as before, it never really went away-it’s just hiding behind the powerful Windows GUI. Over the past several years, Microsoft has done its best to eliminate the need for power users and administrators to work from the command line on an everyday basis. It wasn’t so long ago that the only way to effectively configure an operating system was to work from the command line.