Didn't 4DOS have this as a built-in feature?

Nice work!

- Alex

Hello,
What happens if you load this in autoexec.bat, then go into Windows and open multiple DOS prompts?
Doskey has a lot behind the scenes to make this work. Undocumented DOS and Unauthorized Windows 95 get into this.
You might have to hook INT 2Fh AX=4B05h and INT 2Fh AX=1605h

Hi, @Projanglez,
This is a very nice project, but when it comes to "DOS internal commands" is TAB4DOS compatible with different versions of mS and non-m$ command line interpreters (and even substitutes like 4DOS.COM) or it just has internally hardcoded some of the most common commands like DIR, DEL, COPY, CLS, etc.?

Not to rain on your parade, but newer versions of doskey such as those included with freedos have tab completion already

jakethompson1 wrote on 2026-06-27, 04:52:

Hello, What happens if you load this in autoexec.bat, then go into Windows and open multiple DOS prompts? Doskey has a lot behin […]
Show full quote

Hello,
What happens if you load this in autoexec.bat, then go into Windows and open multiple DOS prompts?
Doskey has a lot behind the scenes to make this work. Undocumented DOS and Unauthorized Windows 95 get into this.
You might have to hook INT 2Fh AX=4B05h and INT 2Fh AX=1605h

Tested it briefly and seems to work out of the box 😀 Please let me know if you find something different.

aVd wrote on 2026-06-27, 14:07:

Hi, @Projanglez,
This is a very nice project, but when it comes to "DOS internal commands" is TAB4DOS compatible with different versions of mS and non-m$ command line interpreters (and even substitutes like 4DOS.COM) or it just has internally hardcoded some of the most common commands like DIR, DEL, COPY, CLS, etc.?

TAB4DOS auto-complete list consists of the following:

- all ms dos 6.22 commands, hard-coded
- all executables in your %path%
- all files in the current directory

Regarding 4DOS specifically: TAB4DOS hooks INT 21h AH=0Ah (DOS buffered input), so it only kicks in for shells that read their command line through that function, like plain COMMAND.COM. 4DOS has its own line editor with its own (much more capable) completion and doesn't use 0Ah for it, so TAB4DOS would simply stay dormant there — it's really meant for people who want to stick with the stock COMMAND.COM.

New release: TAB4DOS v1.1.1

Download: https://github.com/Projanglez/TAB4DOS/releases/latest

• New: When completing the first word of the line, executables (.EXE/.COM/.BAT) are cycled first, then the remaining entries. A short PC-speaker chirp signals the switch between the groups.
• Fixed: Completion could miss files in directories with more than 64 entries.
• Fixed: Command completion could miss executables from later PATH directories (index cap raised from 128 to 512 entries; still no extra resident memory, the index lives on disk).

Feedback and bug reports welcome!

Projanglez wrote on Yesterday, 12:33:

TAB4DOS auto-complete list consists of the following: […]
Show full quote

TAB4DOS auto-complete list consists of the following:

- all ms dos 6.22 commands, hard-coded
- all executables in your %path%
- all files in the current directory

Regarding 4DOS specifically: TAB4DOS hooks INT 21h AH=0Ah (DOS buffered input), so it only kicks in for shells that read their command line through that function, like plain COMMAND.COM. 4DOS has its own line editor with its own (much more capable) completion and doesn't use 0Ah for it, so TAB4DOS would simply stay dormant there — it's really meant for people who want to stick with the stock COMMAND.COM.

Thanks for the answer and the new version of TAB4DOS!

So, TAB4DOS is not an universal in its internal DOS commands completion, but still it is better, than Enhanced DOSKEY for DOS, which has no support for internal DOS commands at all.

aVd wrote on Yesterday, 13:27:

So, TAB4DOS is not an universal in its internal DOS commands completion, but still it is better, than Enhanced DOSKEY for DOS, which has no support for internal DOS commands at all.

Do you have a specific use case, or is your question rather of scientific nature? It would be easy to check DOS version and then only put version-specific commands into the autocomplete index. But I'd love to see at least one person benefitting from it, before implementing it. I thought most if not all retrofans go with DOS 6.22 or 7.

No, I don't have any specific use case, but I don't use m$-DOS 6.xx. I prefer version 7.10 or better off SvarDOS.

I see! Should work in SvarDOS as well, as long as the executables are in the path.

@Projanglez

Thank you for you project.

Would you consider adding keyboard macros and command alias features? What about LFN support?
With those it could be a very competitive DOSKEY like replacement.