The Windows Process Journey — cmd.exe (Windows Command Processor)

“cmd.exe” is the “Windows Command Processor” which is the default CLI (command line interface/interpreter) of Windows (and also reactOS). By the way, it is also known as “Command Prompt”. It is the replacement of “command.com” which was relevant from MS-DOS to Windows XP. In Windows NT/Windows 2000 and Windows XP there was both “cmd.exe” and “command.com” (https://www.computerhope.com/cmd.htm).

The executable is located at “%windir%\System32\cmd.exe”. On 64-bit systems there is also a 32-bit version located at “%windir%\SysWOW64\cmd.exe”. Also, “cmd.exe” allows the execution of any script/executable installed on the system or one of the internal command which included as part of “cmd.exe” like: “cd”, “copy” and “md” (https://wishmesh.com/2014/09/ms-dos-cmd-exe-command-prompt-cd-md-copy/).

Moreover, “cmd.exe” supports executing batch scripts — as shown in the screenshot below. I suggest going through “Windows Batch Scripting” for more information (https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Windows_Batch_Scripting).

Lastly, for a reference of “cmd.exe” I suggest going over the implementation of “cmd.exe” as part of ReacOS (https://github.com/reactos/reactos/tree/3fa57b8ff7fcee47b8e2ed869aecaf4515603f3f/base/shell/cmd).

See you in my next writeup ;-) You can follow me on twitter — @boutnaru (https://twitter.com/boutnaru). Also, you can read my other writeups on medium — https://medium.com/@boutnaru. You can find my free eBooks at https://TheLearningJourneyEbooks.com.