It seems like somebody else has experienced many of the same frustrations with cmd.exe that I have, and found the same limited alternatives as I have. I’ve played with Monad, the Windows Command Shell that’s going to be in Longhorn, and didn’t find it much friendlier. Granted, it’s still in “preview”, so it can’t be judged yet.

Being a command-line freak, though, I would appreciate a more robust shell. Give me a Z Shell any day over cmd.exe!