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After all these years, why does Windows still use cmd.exe as its primary command line? Others, like the various Unix terminal emulators are vastly more powerful, as are the scripting languages (bash, zsh, etc) that they use, while Windows still has this dinky DOS-like POS. We weren't even able to maximize a cmd.exe window until Windows 10 without using an alternative like ConEmu, Console2, etc and even those are still hampered by their dependency on an outdated program, as are PowerShell and the Linux Subsystem for Windows.
Does anyone here know why it hasn't been replaced with something that's even marginally better, that provides everything that all of the other terminals have?
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It doesn't. As of the creators update even the extended folder context menu has replaced the "open cmd" option with "open powershell". There is nothing pushing users to use cmd instead of powershell, it is just included for legacy compatibility.
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Is powershell only in pro versions of windows though?
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L E G A C Y
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>>59941925
Mostly because of tradition.
Windows doesn't have the core utilities that unix-like os's have.
Because of that, there aren't many command line programs for windows. And most windows users aren't comfortable with a text interface.
Introducing a "new" UI in form of a better command line shell just isn't worth it for them, so there's not much development there. Instead they focus on providing GUI applications.
Any advanced windows user will probably just use Powershell anyway.
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>>59942072
No I think the IDE for PS is though
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>>59942032
Oh, I thought PowerShell depends on cmd, not the other way around.
>>59942094
>Windows doesn't have the core utilities that unix-like os's have.
Even if they don't, it would be nice that didn't feel so outdated.
>Introducing a "new" UI in form of a better command line shell just isn't worth it for them, so there's not much development there.
So what, they just let it rot until a new library update would completely break it?
>>59942095
I didn't know there's a PS IDE
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>>59942236
>Oh, I thought PowerShell depends on cmd, not the other way around.
They don't depend on each other
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>>59942236
>they just let it rot
exactly.
It's a business decision. There's no immediate money in it.
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on the topic of powershell it's basically a scripting language with full access to the win api and .net stuff, it's incredibly powerful if you know what you're doing and don't mind verbosity, boilerplate, and the lack of good utilities (which is changing, slowly) - coming from linux it might seem a downgrade but coming from a windows perspective it's the dogs bollocks and should rank up there with visual studio and active directory in terms of usefulness
I don't want to start a religious war but bash on the other hand is an ancient scripting language that was showing its age well over a decade ago, there's a reason why perl and later python and ruby became so popular on linux environments - I'd still take bash and access to the gnu coreutils over powershell but I wouldn't want to be caught dead praising bash as a language
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>>59942260
Do they use a common library or something? I'm not very familiar with Windows' internals.
>>59942340
>bash on the other hand is an ancient scripting language that was showing its age well over a decade ago, there's a reason why perl and later python and ruby became so popular on linux environments
Oh of course. For more complex scripting stuff I use Python, but for basic-medium stuff, bash is much easier and more efficient than cmd.
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>>59941925
http://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-replaces-command-prompt-with-powershell-in-latest-windows-10-build-510328.shtml
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