Am I thinking of the later key's only? (I know my old mk3 one's were done by the local key cutter! and my passat wont/cant be coded on vag-com)
Vag-com should be able to code all cars. I didn't think vag-tacho could do it, just mileage correction, but to be honest i've never used it.
What year is your passat? i can recode my Audi A8, and thats a 1998.
The older cars have a different procedure for programming than the newer ones.