Question What is the difference between net.exe and net1.exe ?

[Bat123Man]

I am unable to find official Microsoft documentation on why these 2 seemingly identical commands exist. I found some forum posts indicating net1.exe was added way back in the late 90's as a temporary Y2K solution, but that suggests the two executables are actually different. As far as I can tell, they do exactly the same thing on Win10 or Win11. Does anyone know the origin of net1.exe and why Microsoft is maintaining 2 seemingly identical EXEs?

 

[bba-tcg]

I believe it's to maintain compatibility with older programs and scripts that may depend on one the other as per the 2nd answer here: https://superuser.com/questions/78346/net-exe-and-net1-exe. Even if they perform the same function, they're different sizes (and versions) and therefore, obviously not identical.

 

[Techmatched]

• net.exe: This is the standard command-line tool used for managing network resources. It provides a variety of commands for managing network shares, user accounts, services, and more.
• net1.exe: This is a legacy version of the net command that was included for compatibility with older systems. It is primarily used in environments where the standard net.exe might not be available or to provide backward compatibility.