If you work with Linux, or even WinXP, you’ll find you get quite used to the convenience of tab completion, in other words, of the ability to type a few characters of a path name, hit tab, then have the full path completed for you.

So when you find yourself back on a Win2k box, whether because you prefer greater stability, less RAM hunger, or even fewer TCPA issues, unfortunately you find yourself without tab completion.

Until, that is, you have been exposed to the hermetic knowledge shared by the privileged few.

During the alcohol-doused exchanges of this month’s PHPlondon meetup, Paul Vanlint revealed that it is possible to alter a registry key in Win2k to provide tab completion, here’s how:

1. start -> run: regedit
2. locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> MICROSOFT -> Command Processor
3. select the ‘CompletionChar’ key
4. modify its value to 9, the decimal ASCII value for a tab