I'd like to restart this old thread http://www.winehq.com/hypermail/wine-users/2005/05/index.html#165 which brings up the point that there are applications that hard-code cmd.exe and (sometimes intentionally) ignore COMSPEC.
One example is Perl, which has the following comment in win32/win32.c: /* we don't use COMSPEC here for two reasons: * 1. the same reason perl on UNIX doesn't use SHELL--rampant and * uncontrolled unportability of the ensuing scripts. * 2. PERL5SHELL could be set to a shell that may not be fit for * interactive use (which is what most programs look in COMSPEC * for). */
I'm currently looking into what would be required for something like a symlink to wcmd.exe, but at the same time I'm wondering the historical reasons for choosing 'wcmd' and if it should be changed to just 'cmd'.
Thomas Kho