Microsoft Replaces Command Prompt with PowerShell in Latest Windows 10 Build

"is executable" is different from "is an executable". Your other comment was worded to say the former, while this one seems to refer to the latter.

For example, a .jpg image can be marked as executable, but it is not an executable. This can happen on both Linux and Windows, and I believe it is handled by the filesystem. I supposed the term "marked as executable" could be used for this, while "is executable" could mean the OS will grant it a PID using the correct system call, but this is uncommon.

On Linux, you can attempt to execute any file using a system call like execve(). Similarly, on Windows you can also attempt to run a JPEG using CreateProcess(). I know the Windows shell probably won't run a JPEG even if it is marked executable(there are a collection of Registry entries that map file extensions to programs that run them, for the shell), but I don't know if the CreateProcess() API function rejects files without the correct extension.

If both CreateProcess() and GetBinaryType() fail to detect a PE file with the incorrect extension, then you can reasonably say that Windows uses the extension to determine whether a file is an executable(though not whether it is executable). The behavior of the shell isn't sufficient.

If you're going to use CMD/PS on windows you might go whole hog and install ConEmu. Then load it up with Cygwin, and DosBox.

ConEmu can even integrate stuff like Putty.

I've used iTerm and Terminal on Mac, and the default Windows Terminal (conhost), PuTTY sand MinTTY on Windows.

Terminal.app is much, much better than conhost, even after the Windows 10 update. It's fast, supports a ton of thoughtful features (such as customizable title bars via extended ANSI codes, real line wrapping during resize, good Unicode support from the very beginning, etc.). With Terminal.app I can be quite happy and productive even with someone else's Mac or with the default settings. I've used iTerm2 but their features weren't compelling enough for me, and the iTerm font rendering is noticeably worse in many ways. Apple has also been very good about giving Terminal.app continuous updates.

On Windows though I have almost always had to install MinTTY or something just to get a halfway usable terminal emulator. The default emulator is just so limited - Unicode support is very plug and pray, the title bar is totally locked, and having to use Windows APIs to change text formatting is a pain. Conhost is also amazingly slow when it comes to large amounts of text, so much so that printf can be extremely detrimental to program performance just because it has to wait for the terminal window to catch up.

PowerShell's terminal experience is better but not quite there. And, PS suffers from extremely long load times - I've seen it take upwards of 10 seconds to start without any extensions. That means that in practice I often pop open cmd.exe even if PS is a better choice, just because I don't want to sit through a long load time.

Microsoft really should get their Terminal story in order. I'll definitely try out ConEmu the next time I sit in front of a Windows box, but like you I wish MS would improve their own apps!

It's GUI shell does. Theoretically you can create a process from any binary blob. But to invoke it the gui way you need to have it either with an .exe or another self executing ext defined in the registry.

I use Windows since version 3.1 and never bothered with it.

Properly configuring cmd.exe was enough for me. Then again I only use the terminal on "as required" basis.