title: what's the difference between command prompt and cmd?
body: <p>I have Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 systems and they all behave similarly.</p>
  
  <p>When I type command prompt into the start menu and press enter, a window titled Command Prompt appears. I gave it a blue background and a green text. When I type start, cmd, or the name of a bat file into the command line, it opens up a window titled cmd, which I gave a background of black and a green text. It seems the colors get stored but... hmm...</p>
  
  <p>When I type cmd into the start menu of Windows 10, a Window titled "cmd" appears, but it recalls the blue background and green text from the Command Prompt window, but typing <code>cmd</code> from that window opens a new one styled black and green. When I double click a batch file, it opens up a window titled command prompt with a different font face and a black background with white text. When I type <code>command</code> it just prints the DOS and copyright headers, but <code>start command</code> opens up a window titled COMMAND.COM with the different font face and the black background with white text.</p>
  
  <p>When type <code>cmd /?</code> into  a list of parameters appears in on the screen. One of them is /Q. It says it turns echo off in the new instance. When I type <code>cmd /Q</code> in either command prompt or cmd, it replaces the window with another using the same title but the black and green color scheme, and does NOT turn off echo. When I type <code>start cmd /q</code>, exactly the same thing occurs, but 'start cmd.exe /q' actually produces an error stating that /Q isn't a valid switch.</p>
  
  <p>This  really is only a fraction of the problem I'm facing here, and I can't even begin to start sorting it out. If some veteran out there who knows all the subtle differences between the apparent grove of command prompts, and ways of calling them, I'd appreciate that person sorting that mess out for me.</p>