Bullshit. cmd has an extension mechanism specifically designed to allow for breaking extensions [1] to the cmd command language. This mechanism hasn't been used

Bullshit. cmd has an extension mechanism specifically designed to allow for breaking extensions [1] to the cmd command language. This mechanism hasn't been used very much, but in principle, you could easily add new SETLOCAL [1] commands to enable support for modern command shell features. But cmd is in "maintenance mode", which means nobody is interested in adding features. Powershell is the new hotness. And Powershell wouldn't even be so bad if some of the more shameful problems were fixed --- a pipe between two native programs should be 8-bit clean! [1] https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb491001.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb491001.aspx