Order in which Command Prompt executes files with the same name (a.bat vs a.cmd vs a.exe)

Question

What is the order in which the Windows command prompt executes files with the same name but different extensions?

For example I have a bunch of executable files (something.cmd, something.bat, something.exe), which of these would be executed when I typed "something" into a command prompt (given they were on the path etc). If that file did not exist which one would then be executed?

I know this is a simple question but I'd like to know if there's a reference someone has that describes this.

Answer 1

I believe this is what you are looking for

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/35284

Answer 2

Okay, I did some quick experimentation based on some other searches I had going.

The gist is that the order of the commands is dependent on the order the extensions are stored in the PATHEXT environment variable. So initially I had:

PATHEXT=.COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.RB;.RBW

and for the example above the order in which it would run it was:

something.exe
something.bat
something.cmd

Changing the order which they were defined in the PATHEXT environment variable did indeed change the order in which they were executed.