Discussion on:

Speedy directory navigation at the Command Prompt in Windows XP

Now why didn't I think of that sooner.

simply enters tabs.
Tried various options to no avail. Is there a registry setting or some other option to enable this?

First I tried the COMMAND command processor and got the same symptoms as you.
I then tried the CMD command processor and it worked as described.

Hitting TAB just enters tab whether I use COMMAND or CMD. I'm using WinXP SP1.

And I'm using Win XP SP2

Frequently, I find myself using the command prompt and sorely missing the old days when Norton's NCD would make navigation easy. Although this is not quite that slick, it does beat the heck out of typing long directory names, only to be reminded that the command prompt does not include a spell-checker!

Craig Herberg

Some more information on this incredible tip.

Instead of tabbing through each directory, one can type in the first known characters of the directory in question and then tab.

For instance, on a machine with directories 01, MyDir01 and MoreDir01
1. Typing [cd TAB] will scroll through all directories alphabetically.
2. Typing [cd M TAB] will start at MyDir01 and then MoreDir01.
3. Typing [cd MO TAB] will start at MoreDir01.

Also once the Tab is used one can type the backslash ?\? and start again.

Therefore [cd P TAB] will scroll through directories staring with P. As an Example Tab until reaching Program Files. The command prompt will change this to ?Program Files?. Now add [\G] and TAB again. The prompt will scroll through all directories in C:\Program Files that start with G.

Incidentally, this also works very well with using the dir and other commands. So [dir P TAB] will scroll through all directories starting with P. Simply press enter when the desired directory is reached.

This tip also works with md (make directory), rd (remove directory) and del. Play around and see what else is available.

Two uses for md with Tab are [md TAB], until reaching the required directory and then modify it to create a new directory with almost the same name or [md TAB] until reaching the required directory and then modify it by adding [\NewDir] to create a new directory.

Way back when I used to work at the command prompt, I quickly got tired of repetitive typing, so I used to create batch files to change directories for me. I made sure that I named the files with as few characters as I could get away with, which reduced a "cd" command from many characters to as little as 2 characters. Obviously, the longer the pathname, the more efficient this method was! Once I got smart enough to include the path to the storage location of the batch files, I used them exclusively for navigation.

However, I'm glad that you offered this tip, since it offers a fast and simple method of navigation, especially for infrequently used directories. Additionally, since most of us have infrequent need to do our work at the command prompt (and, at least in my case, when I do, it's on someone else's machine), this is a welcome alternative to excessive typing or creating batch files for each directory we'll need to access (although it wouldn't take much effort to have copies of the batch files for universal directories available on floppy or USB pen drive).

At any rate, your tip is much appreciated.

Does anyone know of other capabilities like this, that we've long enjoyed in various Unix shells, that are in cmd.exe?

With 5 or 6 other key capabilities, i could even give up my Cygwin shell! (well ... except for the various utilities, grep|sed|awk|find|etc.)

Nice to see more of these LINUX features appearing in Windows.

This has been available since NT by editing the registry at

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor]
"CompletionChar"=dword:00000009.
What is more you can save yourself a lot of [Tab]bing if you start to type the name of the directory then hit [Tab]. e.g. if you type "cd P" then [Tab], it will cycle through all directories starting with P alphabetically until you reach "Program Files"

Nice way to avoid typos in an uneditable environment.

...also try typing just the first few letters of a directory. As soon as you have typed enough letters to uniquely identify the correct directory, use a wildcard * and hit enter.

So to visit the "Program Files" folder,
just type C:>cd prog*