Why do certain commands not show up when you type “help” in cmd.exe?

Question

For instance, netstat. This doesn't show up when you type help, but netstat /? does provide the information.

Are there any other commands that will not get listed?

Also, the command netstat /? > netstat.txt won't work. Any idea why?
The netstat.txt file is created but remains empty.

I have write-permission on the map and the CMD.EXE is running as admin.

Answer 1

netstat.exe is a separate executable that lives in C:\Windows\system32 (or at least it does on XP), rather than being a command within cmd.exe.

There will be a large number of other executables in this folder (and others in the Windows tree) that won't show up when you type help from within cmd.exe.

Answer 2

(I was going to answer this, but then I did some research for you and this is not what I first thought, so +1 as I have learnt a bit here!)

When you type help, it launches c:\windows\syswo64\help.exe (or guessing, c:\windows\system32\help.exe on 32bit)

I guess that listing EVERY executable would simply be a huge list that most people will never read, so they only list built in functions of the command prompt (if, for, goto etc.) and other commands which are generally used all the time.

FYI, if you want to see what is a "built in" command and what is a program, you can create a empty folder and navigate to it, then type

path=0

next, try any of the commands, if like typing "if" works, it is built in, if typing help does not work, you know it was a command located somewhere else (again +1, I thought help was always a built in command!)

Answer 3

I assume most (if not all) of the commands listed under cmd.exe's help are basic/internal commands which are built-in cmd.exe directly.

For instance, try and look for a file named del.exe or del.com, or even a dir.exe or dir.com -- chances are that you won't find it (try: dir /s LookForThisFile.ext) . I bet 10$ that most if not all the commands listed under help are 'internal' to cmd and not a binary by itself.

This way of doing things is also used with bash, where help is used to get help on pretty much any keyword provided by the bash scripting language.