MS-DOS Shell Spawns Two COMMAND.COMs (68990)



The information in this article applies to:
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 4.0
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 4.01
    Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0

This article was previously published under Q68990

SUMMARY

When you spawn a COMMAND.COM using the Command Prompt option in the program list of MS-DOS Shell and run "MEM /P" if using MS-DOS version 5.0 or "MEM /PROGRAM" with earlier versions, it shows that you are running two copies of COMMAND.COM. Why does it do this?

MORE INFORMATION

When you create and run a program item in MS-DOS Shell's program list, Shell spawns a command processor to run the program that is listed in the program item; therefore, when you have a program item that runs COMMAND.COM, it spawns a command processor to run COMMAND.COM, and you have two copies of COMMAND.COM running. This also occurs when you run COMMAND.COM from the file list.

You can avoid running two copies of COMMAND.COM by using the SHIFT+F9 command to spawn a command processor instead of the program item in the program list.

Modification Type: Major Last Reviewed: 10/16/2003
Keywords: KB68990