Sometimes you need to view or find hidden files or folders in Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. This is easy to do:

How to show or hide hidden folders and files in Windows XP

Open any folder or " My computer". In the menu at the top of the window, select " Service” and click on it with the left mouse button. In the drop-down menu, you need the lowest item - " Folder properties«:

Everything. Don't forget to click the " OK»

How to show (open) or hide (hide) hidden folders and files in Windows Vista / Windows 7

In Windows 7 it's even easier. Go to the Start menu, Control Panel, Appearance and Personalization, and find the Show hidden files and folders section.

After clicking on it, the same window will open as in Windows XP.

On the "View" tab, check the box next to " Show hidden files and folders«.

You can also uncheck the box next to " Hide protected system files«.

Everything. Again, don't forget to click the " OK«.

Sometimes, when setting up the system, you need to have access to hidden system folders that are hidden from inexperienced users. Namely, they hide them so that they are not accidentally deleted or moved, because this can affect the operation of the system.

But every day there are various viruses that can hide your files and folders, which you can only see in by turning on the display of hidden folders and files. But, virus removal is not the only situation in which you need to open access to displaying such folders. Just recently, I described solutions to a problem where it was necessary to copy a file to a folder that is system and was invisible to a simple user.

Of course, it’s better not to go into these folders, but sometimes you can’t do without it, so now you will find out how to open hidden folders and files.

How to open hidden folders in Windows XP

Let's start with Windows XP. We open " Start» and click on « Control Panel».

So, as we will open invisible files, we need to go to " Folder properties»

Also, you can use an alternative way to configure the folder. To do this, go to any window and select " Properties» –> « Folder properties».

Either way, the settings window will open. Here we go to the tab " View"And in the additional parameters we go down to the very bottom to the item" Hidden files and folders". We celebrate " Show hidden files and folders» and press « Apply».

In some cases, even after setting the display of hidden folders, some still remain inaccessible. To display them, you can use another item in the settings: " Hide protected system files s". By simply unchecking and saving, some more folders will appear that are considered system folders, perhaps among them there will be the folder that you needed. But, I want to immediately warn you, if you come across some unfamiliar folder, then do not write it off to delete it, perhaps this is one of the system ones that is needed for the OS or application to work properly.

How to show hidden folders in Windows 7

In Windows 7, to enter the folder settings, we also go to "Control Panel" and then "Folder Options"

To enter the settings through the window of any folder, click on "Organize", and there we already select "Folder and Search Options".

In the window itself, check "Show hidden files, folders and drives" and save the settings.

How to show hidden folders in Windows 8

In the new Windows 8 operating system, going into any folder, click on "View", then select "Options" and then "Change folder and search options".

In the settings menu of the folder options, as in the examples described above, we simply mark the same item as on other operating systems, and then click "OK"

I repeat once again, you will meet a hidden folder with a name unknown to you, you should not delete it, and after you finish working with hidden files, do not forget to return everything back, this is done in the same order, just check the item, do not show hidden files and folders. You might also be interested in the article on configuring the extension for registered file types.

Experienced users of various operating systems of the Windows family know that on computers under their control there are always special files and folders that are not visible by default and are therefore called hidden. As a rule, important system files and folders are made hidden, which, if accidentally deleted by the user, can disrupt the operation of the operating system. So that this does not happen and that they do not clutter up the interface and make them hidden. But, in some cases, it becomes necessary to gain access to this data. For example, in the process of fighting viruses and malicious code.

In such cases, knowledge of how to view hidden files and folders in Windows comes in handy. At the same time, the methods for displaying hidden files and folders may be different depending on the operating system. We will describe all the methods below.
How to View Hidden Files and Folders in Windows XP.
In order to open hidden files and folders in Windows XP, you need to do the following.
Open "My Computer", go to the "Tools" menu, from which select "Folder Options". In the window that opens, go to the "View" tab. You should see the window shown below. In the list at the very bottom, find the option "Show hidden files and folders" and enable it by marking it with a mouse click and save the changes made by clicking the "OK" button in this window.

After that, you will be able to view hidden files and folders, which can be distinguished from ordinary ones by a lighter color, as shown in the figure below.

How to View Hidden Files and Folders in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
There are two different ways to show hidden files and folders in Windows Vista or Windows 7.

The first way to show hidden files.

Second way.
It is similar to the previous one and differs only in how you get to the "Folder Options" settings from point 4 of the first method. And that's how you get there. Double click on the "Computer" or "My Computer" icon. In the window that opens, click on the "Organize" button at the top left, and select "Folder and Search Options" in the menu that opens. You will see a window already familiar from the previous method from point 4 called "Folder Options", only on the "General" tab. You go to the "View" tab and do everything as described in the fourth paragraph of the first method.

Sep 12 2012

Welcome to the computer help blog. If you cannot find certain files on your hard drive or flash drive after a virus attack, do not despair and forget about this data.

In this article, I will tell and give specific examples of how to display hidden folders or show hidden files on a computer that have been lost or simply disappeared. While reading, you can watch videos on this topic.

View hidden folders

On a personal computer, there are two types of displayed information - visible and hidden. Developers of software systems deliberately hide some data so that young or inexperienced computer users do not do unnecessary things, namely, delete or change the necessary files for stable system performance.

How to show hidden folders in Windows 7 | website

How to hide a folder or file

Select the desired file or folder.

We right-click on it, in the displayed menu we go to the very bottom and go to Properties.

We go to the very bottom of the General menu, Near "Attributes">>>"Read only", click the checkmark next to Hidden.

When done, click Apply and OK.

Close all open windows. Again we go to the place we need on the computer and this information should disappear or become translucent if you have the system function to display hidden files.

In order to return everything back and make the desired folder or file visible. We do all the same operations, uncheck the box next to Hidden, apply the settings and OK.

How to hide a folder | website

Also, the function of hidden files and folders is useful if you use the Torrent program. To create, enable and place an IP filter in the Documents and Settings >>> Local Settings or Application Data folder, which is useful when downloading files.

It does not allow you to download data from foreign sources, thereby working with the internal resources of the country in which you are located. It saves incoming traffic, which is probably limited for everyone by a certain amount of Gigabytes to external sources.

What have we learned

Today we talked about how to display hidden folders or show hidden files on a computer. We learned what hidden files and folders are, where they are located and how to make them visible. We were also able to hide the data we needed from unwanted eyes or just strangers.

You may have questions related to how to display hidden folders on a computer. You can ask them below in the comments to this article, as well as use the form with me.

Thank you for reading me

In the title, we specifically focus on the standard means of hiding files and folders, since all the others require more detailed acquaintance. Why would a user need to hide a file or folder? There could be many reasons for this. Someone wants to hide confidential data from prying eyes, such as passwords or numbers. In many cases, you want to hide intimate photos or important text files. And often such situations arise that it is necessary to hide entire directories containing tens and hundreds of files. So, let's look at ways to hide files and folders using standard Windows tools.

The easiest way to hide a file in Windows is to open the properties window (right click on the file and select the menu item Properties).

Check the box in the properties window Hidden. As a result, the file should not appear in Explorer.

With regard to the folder, this procedure is supplemented by one more action: after enabling the option Hidden and button presses [Apply] the system prompts us to choose which objects will be hidden.

Choose an option Only for this folder to hide only the folder itself, or check the box To this folder and to all subfolders and files to have Windows automatically assign the attribute Hidden to all files in the selected folder.

After hiding files or folders in the described way, they should no longer be displayed in Explorer or in the My Computer window. What should I do to see hidden files again? To do this, open Explorer, go to the menu Tools - Folder Options- tab View and in the list Extra options find option Show hidden files and folders.

Please note that hidden files and folders in the list can be easily distinguished from the usual ones by the icon, since it has a more noticeable transparency.

To return to the mode when hidden files and folders are not displayed, repeat the procedure and select the option Do not show hidden files and folders.

This is the easiest way to hide data from other users. However, this will be useful only if it is known for sure that the owner of these "prying eyes" does not know how to display hidden files. In addition, many file managers (Total Commander, FAR and others) can display hidden files despite the corresponding system settings.

An additional measure is not only hiding, but also moving the file to another folder. The most suitable place for this is the Windows folder in which the system is installed. The fact is that it contains so many files and folders that it is very difficult to visually determine our file. So, we copy the file or folder somewhere far away (in the sense of "deeper"), for example, to a folder Windows/System32. This is the first stage. Now we rename our file, giving it some system name similar to what other files in the folder have.

Here is a small part of the list of files contained in the Windows/System32 folder:

As you can see, there are many files of the same type with names starting with the letter "c" and with a different set of numbers. Why not rename our file to something similar, for example, c_29905.nls. The main thing is to make sure that the chosen name is not already used by another file. Select the file, right-click to open the menu and select the item Rename. If the file extension is not displayed in Explorer, open the menu in Explorer Tools - Folder Options- tab View and in the list Extra options check if the option is enabled Hide extensions for known file types. For greater convenience, we recommend that you perform all operations in a file manager, such as Total Commander.

After the file takes on a faceless name and the extension changes, it will be problematic to find it among hundreds of other files. The main thing is not to forget yourself where the file is located and what it is called.

Now consider additional measures to protect the file. First of all, this is such an easy way as archiving a file with a password. You can also specify in the parameters so that the list of files in the archive is not displayed ( Encrypt filenames). It is advisable to use the Rar archiver. We have already considered further steps for moving the file and renaming it.

Another procedure will allow you to change the file header, or, in other words, the first bytes. Typically, the first bytes store information about the file type. For example, a Rar archive contains the header rar!(press key to view) F3 in Total Commander and in the menu Options choose Hexadecimal):

After that, in any hexadecimal editor (for example, ) we replace the first bytes with any other characters, such as MZ and zeros. As a result, the system will display the file icon as a library. The only inconvenience is that each time you have to return the original bytes of the file in order to open it.