If you are a Windows power user who frequently needs to use the Command Prompt regularly, then you find it useful to turn on auto-complete in Command Prompt. If you want to make the change permanent, you must edit the Windows Registry.
File name completion and folder name completion are quick-search features of the Windows command processor or cmd.exe. Auto-complete for CMD.exe is not enabled by default in Windows – you have to enable it.
Enable AutoComplete in Command Prompt
You can activate auto-complete permanently or for the current session only.
Activate auto-complete in CMD temporarily
To activate auto-complete in CMD for the current user for the current command session, open the Run box, type the following command and hit Enter:
cmd /f
The /f switch enables or disables file and directory name completion characters.
Now press Ctrl+D to complete the folder name or Ctrl+F to complete a file name. Keep pressing this key combination and see the file names change.
To deactivate automatic complete, type the following and hit Enter:
cmd /f:off
Read: How to Disable Autocomplete & Inline AutoComplete in Explorer and Run box.
Turn on auto-complete in CMD permanently
To enable auto-complete permanently in the command prompt, run regedit to open the Registry Editor and navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor
You will have to edit the CompletionChar value. The default is 40 in Hexadecimal. Set the value of REG_DWORD to 9. This will enable folder name completion.
Next, double-click on PathCompletionChar and change its value to 9.
This will set the TAB key as the control character.
If you want to use the same control characters that you use for a single command session as mentioned in the first part of this post, then set the values as follows:
- 4 for Ctrl+D
- 6 for Ctrl+F
The file name auto-completion feature will work on folders too, because Windows will search for the complete path and match against both file and folder names.
Go on to read more Command Prompt Tips Tricks!
