linguistic:paraphrasing
Earlier versions of Windows

The 16-bit versions of Windows (up to 3.11) ran as a Graphical User Interface (GUI) on top of MS-DOS. With Windows 95, 98, and Me, the role of MS-DOS was reduced to a boot loader according to Microsoft, with MS-DOS programs running in a virtual DOS machine within 32-bit Windows, with ability to boot directly into MS-DOS retained as a backward compatibility option for applications that required real mode access to the hardware, which was generally not possible within Windows. The command line accessed the DOS command line (usually COMMAND.COM) through a Windows module (WINOLDAP.MOD).