Draft:Command Prompt

Not to be confused with, also referred to as the MS-DOS Prompt. The Command Prompt or Windows Command Processor is a built-in command line interpreter included with the Windows NT line of operating systems. It clones the general syntax and behavior of the MS-DOS interpreter, but also draws inspiration from its OS/2 counterpart. The former is still included in 32-bit versions but remains 16-bit for compatibility purposes, while  is native to the operating system.

History
In early versions of Windows NT 3.1, the Command Prompt still had an OS/2-like interpreter, which was a leftover from OS/2. Starting with Windows NT 3.1 build 340.1, to make it more reminiscent to MS-DOS, the interpreter has been changed to show instead. It also had the ability to go full screen by pressing Alt, which will cause Windows to switch to native mode to show the prompt. However, a NTDM/XDDM/XPDM display driver is needed, as this is no longer possible with WDDM drivers, so Windows 7 was the last OS to have this function. It was re-implemented with Windows 10, but it only maximized the Command Prompt window, while still staying on user mode. This was done for security purposes.

All versions of Command Prompt until Windows 7 build 6519 were backed by the Windows Subsystem Server Process, which also caused the quirk that no visual styles (with the exception of DWM-rendered Aero) were applied to the Command Prompt, as  is excepted from theming. Starting with Windows 7 build 6608, the functionalities of Command Prompt were outsourced to the new Console Window Host, which enabled proper theming, as well as drag-and-drop. Starting with Windows 11, Microsoft tries to outsource the functionalities of Command Prompt to the new Terminal app (, previously named "Windows Terminal"), which enables multiple processes of itself, PowerShell, Windows Subsystem for Linux and other command interpreters inside of one window as tabs.

Quirks
In the settings of Command Prompt, there is still a preview bitmap, showing roughly a Command Prompt window in a NT 3.x style.