What is the reason for the CD /D switch in Windows cmd?

windows command-line cmd command-prompt cd
kefir500 picture kefir500 · Sep 25, 2015 · Viewed 10.2k times · Source

At first I'd like to say that I do understand the purpose of the /D switch for the Windows Command Prompt cd command. I'm just curious why it works this way, and not other. As we all know, it does the following:

Use the /D switch to change current drive in addition to changing current directory for a drive.

But every single time I enter (for example) cd F:, it's obvious enough that I would like to change the drive. That is why I think this switch is redundant by itself.

So what's the point of explicitly setting this switch? Why it isn't implied by default?

Answer

Mark Segal picture Mark Segal · Sep 25, 2015

Short answer: Because DOS behaved this way, and cmd tries to mimic DOS.

Originally, DOS had a 'current director' for each drive, so if you write cd d:\folder you change the current directory for the D drive.

You can read more about this here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2010/10/11/10073890.aspx

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