For some reason, the Tab key that auto-completes paths and filenames on the command prompt (cmd), of my Windows XP machine, stopped working.
Pretty strange but anyway, here is how I managed to fix it:
1. Go to Start -> Run, type “regedit”
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor
3. On the right, double-click on the “CompletionChar”, type “9” and press OK.
4. On the right, double-click on the “PathCompletionChar”, type “9” and press OK.
You might need to restart your system after that.
Thank you very much!
Excellent that worked for me.
When I looked in the ‘Command Processor’ folder there were no entries at all, so I added the specified values as String values. Then I just restarted cmd, not the whole of Windows, and it worked 🙂
Still don’t know why this essential feature got broken in the first place?
I am glad that the post was helpful. 🙂
Windows are so mysterious sometimes.
Thanks – it works without rebooting. I still wonder why mine changed. Where it should be “9” mine was “1a” (hex)
Thanx.
It solve my problem.
type doskey on command prompt
please ignore doskey comment its purpose is different the solution above works fine
Amazing. Thanks for the fix!
Worked on my Vista too, something somehow had replaced my “CompletionChar” with the Substitute character hexa 1a (deci. 26), which looks graphically like a tab: → but is none.
Thanks, decoding!
@Chimel: Since this is the first hit on google, I just wanted to let everyone know that the control character for hex 1a is ^Z (That’s CTRL+Z).
It worked! Thank you very much.