Among the many commands, statements and functions in 4DOS and lacking in DOS/Windows 95–98 COMMAND.COM are reading keyboard input and a simpler method of working with colors of screen and text.

The program is a recompilation of 4OS2, and continues to have features of OS/2's command processor (cmd.exe), such as running REXX scripts, and EXTPROC support.

A new Win32 program Tabbed Command Interface (TCI), was released at the time of 4NT version 7.

This program allowed one to attach (thereby reducing screen clutter) and detach tabbed consoles to a single window.

4DOS features a number of enhancements compared to COMMAND.COM:[1] Originally distributed as shareware, 4DOS has been later released as unsupported freeware.

Some versions of the Norton Utilities for DOS included modified copies of 4DOS called NDOS.