Hi, When I run SOME DOS apps, not all, command.com loads and cmd.exe unloads. Here is a partial environment 'dump' BEFORE________ c:\TEMP>set >>=settings.1 ALLUSERSPROFILE=C:\Documents and Settings\All Users APPDATA=C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data CommonProgramFiles=C:\Program Files\Common Files COMPUTERNAME=BIG933 ComSpec=C:\WINNT\system32\cmd.exe HOMEDRIVE=C: AFTER______________________ C:\TEMP>set COMSPEC=C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\COMMAND.COM >>=settings.1 ALLUSERSPROFILE=C:\DOCUME~1\ALLUSE~1 APPDATA=C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\APPLIC~1 COMMONPROGRAMFILES=C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1 COMPUTERNAME=BIG933 HOMEDRIVE=C: _____________________________ Notice that the the new COMSPEC is not in alphabetical order like anything else added. But that's not nearly the weirdest part. I can make no sense of which progs cause this effect. Borland C++ does it: BC or BCC or CPP. XDEL, copyright Digital Research 1987 [!] does NOT. It gets weirder. When command.com loads the 'command history' [sorta like doskey] goes away. I figured OK, I'll load doskey. I type doskey /insert. Prompt comes back. But there's no doskey. Can't arrow up to earlier commands. And I checked mem/c and it's not there. I have a batch file which says 'exit' ; no quotes ; because I'm not a great typist. When I type x and press return with cmd.exe running, it exits cmd. When I type x and press return with command.com running, it just sits there. When I type exit and press return it exits. But it doesn't just exit command.com and go back to cmd.exe. It ends the 'DOS box' session. BTW, the x bat file works in 5.0 6.22 and 98se. This one really has me amazed and confused. Any contestants? M2

Hi, It is not normal, isn't it ? command.com is emulated in win2k, and is a process dependent of NTVDM (virtual 16 bit machine description) in fact it's an application that provides an environment for a 16-bit process to execute on a 32-bit platform. cmd.exe is the shell of win2k, it's the Microsoft Windows command prompt. Cmd.exe is a 32-bit command prompt used in Windows NT, 2000, and XP. Two shells can be loaded and be running at the same time, I do not know why happens that, I think something in your OS is not working properly kopustes MicroWan Ethical Hacking http://www.microwan.net