Windows 9x系では「DOSプロンプト」という名前(「プロンプト」とは「C:\>」のようなユーザーに入力を促すメッセージのこと)でMS-DOS互換環境のシェルとして起動された。COMMAND.COM は16bitアプリであるが、そこから32ビット Windows アプリケーションの起動もできた。OS/2とWindows NT系ではcmd.exeにその役割を譲ったが、32ビット版のWindows NTでは互換性のためにCOMMAND.COMも付属しており、IA-32の仮想DOSマシンで利用可能である。64ビット版では16ビットアプリのサポートを終えたため削除された。
バッチファイルは、UNIXのシェル sh の .コマンドのようにカレントプロセスで実行されるため環境変数の変更などが可能である。またMS-DOS 5でCALLという内部コマンドが実装される以前は、バッチ中から別のバッチを実行すると戻る方法が基本的にはなく、COMMAND.COMを明示的に再帰的に起動して、そのCOMMAND.COMに子バッチを実行させる必要があった。
置換パラメータ: %0, %1...%9の形式で、コマンド名と最初の9つのコマンドライン引数がスクリプトに渡される。例えば、呼び出しコマンドが"myscript.bat John Doe"の場合、%0は"myscript.bat"、%1は"John"、%2は"Doe"である。10番目以降の引数は、SHIFT文を使用して参照範囲をずらすことで参照できる。
^ ab4DOS 8.00 online help. (2002-02-27). "[…] Multiple Commands: You can type several commands on the same command line, separated by a caret [^]. For example, if you know you want to copy all of your .TXT files to drive A: and then run CHKDSK to be sure that drive A's file structure is in good shape, you could enter the following command: C:\>COPY *.TXT A: ^ CHKDSK A: You may put as many commands on the command line as you wish, as long as the total length of the command line does not exceed 511 characters. You can use multiple commands in aliases and batch files as well as at the command line. If you don't like using the default command separator, you can pick another character using the SETDOS /C command or the CommandSep directive in 4DOS.INI. […] SETDOS /C: (Compound character) This option sets the character used for separating multiple commands on the same line. The default is the caret [^]. You cannot use any of the redirection characters [<>|], or the blank, tab, comma, or equal sign as the command separator. The command separator is saved by SETLOCAL and restored by ENDLOCAL. This example changes the separator to a tilde [~]: C:\>SETDOS /C~ (You can specify either the character itself, or its ASCII code as a decimal number, or a hexadecimal number preceded by 0x.) […] CommandSep = c (^): This is the character used to separate multiple commands on the same line. […] Special Character Compatibility: If you use two or more of our products, or if you want to share aliases and batch files with users of different products, you need to be aware of the differences in three important characters: the Command Separator […], the Escape Character […], and the Parameter Character […]. The default values of each of these characters in each product is shown in the following chart: […] Product, Separator, Escape Parameter […] 4DOS: ^, ↑, & […] 4OS2, 4NT, Take Command: &, ^, $ […] (The up-arrow [↑] represents the ASCII Ctrl-X character, numeric value 24.) […]"
^“Hinweise zu JPSofts 4DOS 5.5b/c, 5.51, 5.52a und NDOS” (ドイツ語). MPDOSTIP (1997年5月1日). 2016年11月4日時点のオリジナルよりアーカイブ。2015年5月8日閲覧。 (NB. The provided link points to a HTML-converted version of the 4DOS5TIP.TXT file, which is part of the MPDOSTIP.ZIP collection.) [5]
“Re: Random Lockups with DR-DOS 7.03”. FidoNet conference: ALT_DOS (2004年6月17日). 2019年4月28日時点のオリジナルよりアーカイブ。2019年4月28日閲覧。 “[…] all MS-DOS versions prior to Windows 95 […] used a COM style COMMAND.COM file which has a special signature at the start of the file […] queried by the MS-DOS BIOS before it loads the shell, but not by the DR-DOS BIOS […] COMMAND.COM would […] check that it is running on the "correct" DOS version, so if you would load their COMMAND.COM under DR-DOS, you would receive a "Bad version" error message and their COMMAND.COM would exit, so DR-DOS would […] display an error message "Bad or missing command interpreter" (if DR-DOS was trying to load the SHELL= command processor after having finished CONFIG.SYS processing). In this case, you could enter the path to a valid DR-DOS COMMAND.COM (C:\DRDOS\COMMAND.COM) and everything was fine. Now, things have changed since MS-DOS 7.0 […] COMMAND.COM has internally become an EXE style file, so there is no magic […] signature […] to check […] thus no way for DR-DOS to rule out an incompatible COMMAND.COM. Further, their COMMAND.COM no longer does any version checks, but […] does not work under DR-DOS […] just crashes […] the PC DOS COMMAND.COM works fine under DR-DOS […]” [6][7]