CMD is the remains of DOS. Those path and temp variables come straight from DOS. I notice you carefully ignored the majority of what I said. Reality is DOS is the heart of Windows. You look at any Windows Architecture diagram (like this one http://www.activewin.com/winvista/images/LonghornArch.PDC2003.png ) and you’re going to see FAT, File System Cache and IO Manager, those are the main areas where Windows feet of DOS clay (and CP/M even) live. Deny it if you want, throw insults if you must, but the truth is the truth, and the truth is Windows still sits on DOS.
“Unlike COMMAND.COM, which is a DOS program, cmd.exe is a native program for the platform. This allows it to take advantage of features available to native programs on the platform and not available to DOS programs. For example, since cmd.exe is a native text-mode application on OS/2, it can use real pipes in command pipelines, allowing both sides of the pipeline to run concurrently. As a result, it is possible to redirect the standard error in cmd.exe, unlike COMMAND.COM. (COMMAND.COM uses temporary files, and runs the two sides serially, one after the other.)
Technically, cmd.exe is a Windows program that acts as a DOS-like command line interpreter. It is generally compatible, but provides extensions which address the limitations of COMMAND.COM:”
You are also incorrect on the kernel see the following:
http://blog.chinaunix.net/u2/67414/showart_1898747.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT
or the following book http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735625301/gustduar-20
Windows (MS-DOS Based)
Windows 1.0
Windows 2.0
Windows/286 and Windows/386 (Windows 2.1)
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1, Windows 3.1 for Workgroups, Windows 3.11, and Windows 3.11 for Workgroups (WfW)
Windows 95 (Windows 4.0)
Windows 98 (Windows 4.1)
Windows Millennium Edition (Windows 4.9)
Windows NT
Windows NT 3.1
Windows NT 3.5
Windows NT 3.51
Windows NT 4.0 including up to Service Pack 6a
Windows 2000 (Windows NT 5.0) including up to Service Pack 4
Windows XP (Windows NT 5.1) including up to Service Pack 3
Windows Server 2003 (Windows NT 5.2) including up to Service Pack 2
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (Windows NT 5.2) including up to Service Pack 2
Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (Windows NT 5.1) including up to Service Pack 3
Windows Home Server (Windows NT 5.2) Windows Vista (Windows NT 6.0) including up to Service Pack 1
Windows Server 2008 (Windows NT 6.0) including up to Service Pack 1
Windows 7 (Windows NT 6.1)
Windows Server 2008 R2 (Windows NT 6.1)
Everthing since WinME is based on the WinNT kernal. DOS is ran in emulation mode. You are not running on the lower OS, like you used to; MSFT saw fit to continue to support DOS and DOS commands via an eumlator (Do a search for a C:\DOS\ directory. I'd love to hear if you find it).
