In earlier versions of Windows, the way we opened a command window — a DOS window — was by using Start, Run, Command and pressing the Enter key. If we did it a lot, we even created a shortcut to the file c:\windows\command.com

But, in the early versions of Windows XP, Microsoft removed the COMMAND command and substituted the CMD comamnd. However, I just recently found out that they added COMMAND back in one of the service packs.

The “official” Windows XP version of the command to open a “command window” is CMD instead of COMMAND.

Since Windows doesn’t recognize the difference in uppercase and lowercase, cmd.exe, or just cmd, opens a slightly improved command window. For one thing, it sets up the DOSKEY capability automatically. If you knew DOSKEY, you really appreciate that. If you aren’t familiar with DOSKEY, that was the DOS command that created a history of the commands that you had entered — and we could access, edit and rerun those commands by using the scroll keys.

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