Command Prompt Completion Characters

danholme — Wed, 14 May 2008 20:06:49 GMT

The Windows command prompt can do path & filename completion, which means you can type part of a filename or path, press TAB (or CTRL+D or any other key combination) and it will autocomplete the rest of the path for you. This is a huge time saver when working in the command prompt.

The reg file below sets TAB as the filename path completion key, and CTRL+D as the path completion character. Enter this reg file, open a command prompt, and test it out.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor]
"EnableExtensions"=dword:00000001
"CompletionChar"=dword:00000009
"PathCompletionChar"=dword:00000004

Dan Holme : Admin Tips

Command Prompt Completion Characters