The last time I looked (which I admit is forever ago), "dir" was not a program in Windows (or DOS before it). Rather, it's a built-in shell command. You should try some actual program that will emit console output, but to be honest I don't know one off the top of my head.

Alternatively, I'm pretty sure CMD.EXE (your shell) has some options to execute built-in commands. I just don't know what they are these days.

It may also be worth testing whether you can execute batch files without starting a new shell.

Of course, it may be something completely different, but that's where I'd start.