Oh here is the change that could make Cmd run instead of Explorer.
  On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Timo Kreuzer
<timo.kreuzer(a)web.de> wrote:
  Am 21.06.2012 15:24, schrieb WaxDragon:
  Somewhere back in time, there is a version of ROS that loaded the GUI
  on-demand.  Dark times. ;0)
 *cough*/CONSOLE*cough*
  In fact this functionality is still there and should work. 
 But the only thing it
does, is to switch to gui mode. win32k and the rest
 are already loaded.
 
 I think that I actually am starting to find this. I was browsing around the
 iso's that I have and on the ReactOS.iso I could see that it all goes
 through the ReactOS installation process. On that iso, the base core files
 seem to be loaded after which control is passed to the installer
 "ReactOS.exe" which utilizes a GUI and does not seem to be at the native
 level although I could be wrong.
 I'm still not sure which last core file passes control over to the
 reactos.exe file, but it seems like this installation process might be a
 good starting point for the experiment that I am working towards.
 Cheers,
 Lonnie