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What is the order in which the Windows command prompt executes files with the same name, but different extensions?

For example, I have a bunch of executable files: something.cmd, something.bat and something.exe. Which of these would be executed when I typed something into a command prompt (given they were on the path, etc.)? If that file did not exist which one would then be executed?

Is there a reference that describes this?

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Okay, I did some quick experimentation based on some other searches I had going.

The gist is that the order of the commands is dependent on the order the extensions are stored in the PATHEXT environment variable. So initially I had:

PATHEXT=.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.RB;.RBW

and for the example above the order in which it would run it was:

something.exe something.bat something.cmd

Changing the order which they were defined in the PATHEXT environment variable did indeed change the order in which they were executed.

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2 Comments

If the PATHEXT variable is deleted, the order is the same as in the old MS-DOS days: COM, EXE, BAT and now CMD.
This answer would be more complete if in included paths. Is the algo "find all matches in all paths in PATH, then apply PATHEXE order" or "for each path in PATH, get matches at that path. Pick from PATHEXE if any, next"

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