Enabling Command Line Completion (Windows 2000)

Having command completion set is essential for those who use the command line frequently. You can impress your friends and make it look like you type over 100 words per minute!

By default, Command Completion is disabled for Windows 2000. Command Line Completion is enabled by default on Windows XP and Windows 2003. Note: You must have Administrator priviledges on your box to do this.

To enable command line completion (Windows 2000):

  1. From the command line, type Regedit to bring up the Registry Editor.
  2. In the left pane of the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Microsoft -> Command Processor.
  3. In the right pane, select Completion Char.
  4. Right click and select Modify.
  5. Change the 'Value data:' field from to 9 (it will usually be 40 initially).
  6. Close the Registry Editor.

Warning: Editing the registry directly like this can be dangerous to your system. Be sure to make no other changes than those prescribed below!

This makes command line completion work with the Tab key. Any Command Prompts currently running won't be affected; you'll need to open new Command Prompt windows to use command line completion.

To use command line completion:

Whenever you need to type a filename in a command prompt window, simply begin to type the filename, then hit the Tab key. This will either complete the entire filename, or as much of the filename as it can determine from what you have typed. Similar filenames may require you to type a few more characters until the filename is unambiguous. Alternately, you can hit Tab before starting to type a filename to cycle through all files in the directory. Use Shift-Tab to cycle through in reverse order.

Note: If you are using the command line editing features to edit a previous command, beware that using command line completion somehwere in the middle of a previous command will cause rest of the line to be lost.

Last updated Monday, 17 January 2005, 12:00:00 ET