Show hidden files in windows 7. Other programs to work with hidden files

Good afternoon Dear readers of the blog site, recently my friend asked how enable showing hidden files in Windows, I quickly told him, he was satisfied, but I think that other users may also experience this question so this article is for you. In windows 7, hidden files are included very simply, below I will give several methods that will be relevant for later systems, such as Windows 8.1 or Windows 10. I am sure that many will find this very interesting.

1 Way to show hidden files in Windows 7, through the organize menu

Open the My Computer shortcut and on the left we see the item Organize - Folder and Search Options

Click on it, and the Folder Options window opens in front of you.

2 way to show hidden files in Windows 7, through the magic Alt button

Open the same shortcut my computer

Press the magic ALT button on your keyboard

and we see that after this manipulation you have a menu on top. From it you select Tools-Folder Options

3 Way to show hidden files in Windows 7, this is through the control panel

Click Start - Control Panel

And go to the folder options, and then everything is the same as in the previous methods, turn on desired parameter. So just turn on the display of hidden files in Windows, and you can easily find hidden files on a flash drive or any other device. I hope this article was useful to you. Do not forget to share articles using social buttons, give knowledge to the masses.

By default, any version of Windows disables the ability to see hidden files. This is necessary so that inexperienced "dummies" do not accidentally delete anything and do not disrupt the operation of the OS. The decision is quite logical, since these folders are rarely required. And even then - only a few users. But still, sometimes it becomes necessary to view hidden files.

For example, during Windows optimization and garbage cleaning. Many programs ( Microsoft Word, Skype) create hidden files as they work. Over time, they become unnecessary, but are stored on disk and take up extra space.

Very often, gamers have a need to enable hidden folders and files. After all, it is in them that saves from many games are stored.

Also, the display of hidden files is required for users who want to hide documents on a flash drive, but do not yet know how to find them later. In general, there are a lot of reasons.

I note right away that in different Windows versions this setting is done in different ways. Although some methods may overlap. Therefore, below are a few instructions on how to enable hidden files in all Windows - "seven", "eight", "ten" and XP. Plus is given universal way running on all OSes.

If you need to disable their display, then in the same window check the box "Do not show ...".

Second way:

Go to Start, open the "Control Panel" and click on the "Folder Options" shortcut.
Select the "View" section, scroll the slider down and activate the "Show ..." item.
Save changes by clicking "Apply".

And the third way:

Open any folder.
Click the Alt button and the following menu will appear.
Click Tools - Folder Options.
A familiar window will open: to enable the display of hidden files, go to the "View" tab and check the box "Show ...".

As you can see, there is nothing complicated here. Choose whichever method suits you best and use it at the right time.

When you turn on viewing hidden files in Windows 7 using any of the above methods, they will be visible everywhere. Including on a flash drive. You just need to connect it to a PC or laptop - and you will see the hidden folders (provided that they are there). The same goes for an external HDD.

We figured out the "seven", now let's move on to the "eight".

How to enable hidden files in Windows 8?

There are also 3 options to choose from. The first two are described above in the instructions for Windows 7. That is, you can enable hidden files in Windows 8 by typing the control folders command. Or by selecting the Folder Options shortcut in the Control Panel.

But there is another way to show hidden files in Windows 8:

Open any folder.
Select the "View" section.
Click on Show or Hide, and then check the box next to Hidden Items.

Ready. And not only in the current folder, but also in the rest. The same methods will help display hidden files on a flash drive or external HDD drive- you just need to connect them to a computer or laptop.

The last method, which works on Windows 8, is also suitable for "tens"

To enable hidden files in Windows 10:

Open any folder.
Select the "View" section.
Put a checkmark in the "Hidden Items" section.

After that, you will be able to see hidden folders and documents in any section hard drive or on a flash drive (it must be connected to a PC).

If you want to hide the folders again, uncheck this box.

There is also another way to enable the display of hidden files in Windows 10:

Ready. Now you can open any hidden files on Windows 10. As you can see, the methods on different versions of the OS are quite similar, but differ in small nuances.

Piggy today is not used by many users, but still consider it. How to view hidden files in XP

All - now you can open or delete hidden folders and documents.

If you don’t want to understand the differences between different versions of Windows, you can use the universal method

In this case, you just need to install the file manager Total Commander(download link). The program sees hidden documents and works on all Windows.

How to see hidden files in Total Commander? To do this, do the following:

Now all folders and documents in Total Commander will be visible. And for this, you don’t even have to go into the Windows settings and change the folder display settings.

Need to see hidden documents? Launch Total Commander and go to desired section hard drive. Or plug in a flash drive and then open it with this file manager.

As you can see, all ingenious is simple. Now you know how to show hidden files and make them visible. And if necessary, you can easily find them. The only advice: if you find any unfamiliar folders, do not delete them. After all, they may contain important system files, the removal of which will disrupt the operation of Windows.

Installed operating system protects your vital data. They are invisible to users with any access rights. The goal is to protect the system from crashing due to an accidentally deleted file that is important for the operation of the operating system or damage to it by inept actions. If you work at an enterprise where equipment is serviced by an engineer with a special education - system administrator, then you do not need knowledge about such data - if necessary, the administrator will work with them. But, in case of failures in the operation of the operating system at home, knowledge will come in handy.

To show hidden folders, follow the tips below

Need to show hidden folders in windows 7

Reasons to look at hidden folders:

anti-virus system messages about a virus in System Volume Information . This is where the operating system saves data so that if a failure occurs, you can quickly restore the system (if this function is enabled). This data is hidden by default.
desire to free HDD from redundant restore points
clearing temporary files along the path C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
deleting files from temp folders to free up disk space

Ways to open hidden folders in windows 7

To display hidden folders in windows 7, you need to get to their properties, where you can set the appropriate settings.

WATCH VIDEO

This can be done in several ways:

conductor
control Panel
additional installed programs

Using personalization properties

Press the start button and use the control panel to go to the section that is responsible for the external display of information. It's called Appearance and Personalization. Here we select the section responsible for folder parameters and set the necessary parameters.

Fig.1 Go to the "Appearance and personalization" section

If you want to display system data, then in the same way uncheck the box "Hide protected system files"

Using windows 7 explorer

IN windows explorer 7 select the item "Organize", then in the item responsible for the properties of the folders.

Fig. 2 Select "Organize"

It's called Folder and Search Options. The display options for making hidden folders visible are on the View tab.

Fig.3 Go to "Folder and search options"

Using the Properties of Optionally Installed Program Managers

Often, users use additional managers for the convenience of work. Such as ACDSee, Total Commander, Far manager and the like. In the settings of most of them, it is possible to configure the display of hidden folders, which allows you to enable hidden folders.

Ways to protect your own documents from damage

If a computer is used by multiple users, often to hide information, protect it from the eyes of a neighbor, or protect the fruits of their labor from accidental damage, users make their data hidden. In addition, you can put a password on your own documents to protect against prying eyes and unplanned changes.

You can create an invisible folder in widows 7.

To do this, right-click on the name, select the "Rename" item, press the alt and 255 keys at the same time. This way we get an invisible name. To make the folder itself invisible, you need to right-click, select “change icon” from the context menu, select an invisible icon from the proposed icons.

You can password-protect a folder in windows 7 in several ways:

using the archiver
by using additional programs(e.g. Hide Folder)
with a little program code, written in bat file

In addition, files become hidden if used in additional options their properties attribute "hidden".

Novice users sooner or later have to look for ways to ensure the security of personal data on the computer. In one case, the files can be encrypted or packed into a password-protected archive, while in others you have to hide directories with personal photos and other data in the jungle file system or make invisible in Explorer windows.

When it comes time to turn to the contents of the hidden directory, the question arises: how to show hidden folders in Windows 7. We hide something, but we don’t know how to display it back. This short but detailed article will answer the question.

Hidden folders and files are physically no different from normal ones. The only difference is that the former have the Hidden attribute active. It can be assigned to any file system object to which the user has access. Many system directories, for example, are not visible to the user by default for security reasons. system files from inexperienced users.

Conductor

The meaning of any of the methods (except for using third-party software) is to change the value of the system registry key responsible for visualizing hidden folders in Windows 7.

The solution to the problem begins with the launch of Explorer, for example, using the Win + E key combination (the contents of the My Computer directory will open).
Click on the "Organize" button located under the window header.

In the "Tools" drop-down menu, click on the "Folder Options" item.

The same window opens through the main menu of the explorer.

Press the Alt key to bring up the main menu.
In it, click on the "Service" item.

From the drop-down list, select "Folder Options ...".

Switch to the "View" tab.

Scroll through the list of options in the Advanced Options frame.

To return the hidden directories, move the switch next to the "Hidden folders and files" option to the second position - "Show hidden files ...".

Click "OK" to save the new settings for the Windows graphical shell.

Now Explorer will display all file system objects with the Hidden attribute, and this does not require a computer restart, re-authorization in the system, or even a window refresh.

Icons with low brightness and color saturation indicate that the files/folders have been assigned the "Hidden" attribute.

You can also get to the settings window, familiar from the previous section, through the control panel.

We launch it in any convenient way.

If its elements are shown as categories, go to the "Appearance and personalization" section.

Here, click on "Folder Options".

In the case when the control panel items are displayed as small or large icons, the Folder Options applet is already in the main window.

By the way, the “control folders” command will help you open the window with the settings of the directory parameters the fastest. It should be executed through the search bar or the "Run" window. The key combination Win + R will help to do this.

Registry Editor

You can also change the value of the key that allows you to manage hidden objects manually using the registry editor built into Windows 7. To do this, run it.

Open the "Run" window through the start or the key combination Win + R.
Enter and execute the "regedit" command.

Administrator privileges are required to perform the operation.

Expand the HKEY_CURREN_USER hive, where all settings related to the current account are stored.

We go along the path: "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced".
We call the context menu of the key with the name "Hidden" and click "Change ...".

1. Enter "1" as the new key value and press Enter or click "OK".

It remains to re-enter the directory where the hidden objects were. You can also refresh its contents with the F5 key or the button located to the right of the address bar.

Total Commander

Many Windows users They prefer the Total Commander file manager to Explorer due to the program's huge advantage in convenience and functionality. To enable the function of displaying hidden directories and files, we perform the following chain of operations.

From the main menu, call the "Configuration" command.

In the drop-down menu, click on the item “Settings: Panel Contents”.

To display hidden directories, the activation of the option "Show hidden folders" will help. Mark it with a flag and apply the settings.

After saving the settings and closing the configuration window, Total Commander will start showing hidden folders.

How to hide information

You can hide a folder or file by assigning an appropriate attribute to it/him. This is done in the following way.

First you need to open the "Properties" of the object through the context menu or through the keyboard shortcut Alt + Enter .
Check the box next to the "Hidden" option in the "Attributes" frame.

If this checkbox is unchecked, the hidden file/directory will be displayed in the Explorer window.

Save the new settings by selecting the appropriate options in the warning window.

Regarding removable drives

After removing viruses of the Win32 family, which hid all files on the flash drive and replaced them with themselves, you have to change the attributes of all the affected objects. A little trick will help you to view their list and make them visible for the current media without activating the option to visualize directories and files hidden in Explorer.

Open the contents of the flash drive in Explorer or file manager, through right button mouse, we call the context menu of the free area and create a new text file with any name and permission "bat" (when renaming it, replace "txt" with "bat").

Through its context menu text file call the "Change" command.

Insert the following line "attrib -s -h -r -a *.* /s /d" and close text editor saving the changes made.

Execute this file double click left key and wait for the command line window to close.

As a result, the "Hidden" attribute will be removed for all objects on the flash drive, and they will become visible without changing any settings.

Search for hidden files

To find and display directories and files that have the "Hidden" attribute, called the Hidden File Finder program from the SecurityXploded team. She doesn't change at all. system settings. The program will only scan the specified directory or drive, filter all found files and folders by the "Hidden" attribute and display a list of found objects to which it is assigned. If you want to find data (photos, movies and even directories) hidden by someone without changing Windows settings 7, install and run Hidden File Finder.

In the main window, click on the directory icon with a green arrow and select the scanning source.

If you check the “Perform complete computer scan” option, the program will check all available digital storage media.

If necessary, we call the application settings by clicking on the red button with the image of a gear, and exclude unnecessary objects from the search (shortcuts, empty files and directories).

Click "Start Scan".

We are waiting for the completion of the procedure. It will be marked by the appearance of an information window, which we close.

The window displays only those file system objects that have the "Hidden" attribute assigned. Moreover, the names of directories are highlighted in blue.

Through the context menu of any object or their group, you can go to the selected directory, open the file, make it visible or delete it.

Choose the most suitable method for your case, because none of them is universal.

Video instruction

Sometimes it becomes necessary to protect personal files or folders. This is especially true if more than one person works with the computer. One solution is hiding. Of course, it will not help in the case of an advanced user. But it will hide information from unsuspecting eyes.

How to hide/show files and folders on a Windows 7 computer

Standard way

To hide a file or folder, you need to go through two steps in sequence:

Turning off the visibility of hidden folders

If the “Do not show…” option is set in the settings, then hidden files and folders will still be displayed, with the only difference that, compared to a regular element, the label of such objects is dimmer.

Changing Folder/File Options

After these steps, the folder or files will become hidden and will not be displayed.

Enabling visibility and viewing

To show hidden items, you need to go to the folder settings and check the box next to "Show hidden files, folders and drives." And in order for a specific object to stop being invisible, you need to uncheck the “Hidden” option.

How to make a folder invisible - video

Via Total Commander

This method is related to the previous one in that in "Folder Options" there should also be a checkmark in front of the item "Do not show hidden files, folders and drives."

How to view files and make them open

To show hidden files and folders, press Ctrl + H.

To make the documents visible again, you need to use the combination Alt + A and uncheck the "Hidden" item.

Via Free Hide Folder

If you want to be sure that no one can see hidden information, then you can use program Free Hide Folder, which requires you to set a password.

Free Hide Folder does not hide individual files. Available for free download on the Internet.

When you first start the program, a window will appear in which you need to enter and confirm the password. By the way, it will also be required when uninstalling the program.
The next window will ask you to enter registration code, but this is not a requirement. To continue working, you need to select Skip.
Then click on the Add icon and select the folder you want to hide.
After the folder is selected, a message will appear stating that it is desirable to make a Backup. It is advisable to follow the advice.
Backup saves information about the program. If the latter is removed, then after re-installation, access to hidden folders will recover.

In addition to Add, the general window has buttons for:

How to find hidden information and transfer it to a USB flash drive

Free Hide Folder hides folders so that they cannot be found using search. The only way is to open the program and select the Unhide tool. A special feature is that it does not hide documents that are on removable drives.

Because Windows search cannot detect documents hidden by Free Hide Folder, copying cannot be used. Thus, invisible folders cannot be transferred to removable drives.

With Image and Archiver

For this method, you will need a folder with files, any image and the WinRAR archiver. The program is available for free download on the official website. In this case, the bitness of the processor must be taken into account. To find out, you need:

You can take any image, there are no restrictions.

Add desired folder to the archive.
Place the archive and the image in the same folder, preferably located in the root of the disk.
Using the Win + R combination, launch the Run tool, enter cmd in the line and click OK.
IN command line go to the folder where the archive and image are located. To do this, enter the cd command and the address. In this case it is cd c:\.
Then press Enter.
Now in the line you need to write the names of the image, archive and new file. Also, all three positions must contain extensions. In this case, it turns out: COPY / B Image.jpg + FolderWithFiles.rar ImageWithArchive.jpg.
Press Enter. If everything was written correctly, a message will appear on the command line that the files have been copied.

If you now open the created file, only the image that was taken as the basis will open.

The original files can be deleted.

How to view hidden files

To be able to view the files hidden in the image, you need to open the illustration itself using WinRAR.

But the archiver must first be added to the list of programs that can open images:

In the "Open with" menu, click on the "Choose a program" item.
Click on "Browse" and in the window that opens, find the folder with the archiver.
Open the folder and select the shortcut to launch the program.
Next, WinRAR will appear in the list of programs that can open the image. You also need to uncheck the box "Use the selected program for all files of this type." Otherwise, all images will be opened using the archiver.

When the user opens the image with the archiver, it will be seen that there is a folder inside.

But don't hide too much information in one file. If it takes tens of megabytes, even an inexperienced user will have suspicions.

Possible mistakes

How to enable the "Show hidden files and folders" option

Sometimes a situation occurs that the user activates the “Show hidden files and folders” option, but the switch automatically switches to the “Do not show hidden files and folders” position. In this case, you need:

Otherwise, the parameter must be created. To do this, right-click on an empty area of the window, select New, then DWORD Value. Name it CheckedValue and give it a value of 1.

Go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.
Find the Hidden parameter (with value 0), REG_SZ type, in the list and delete it.
If the list contains the Hidden parameter, REG_DWORD type, then change its value to 1. Otherwise, the parameter must be created.
Find the SuperHidden parameter in the list, REG_DWORD type, and change its value to 1.
Press "F5" to refresh the editor window and close it.

What to do if "Folder Options" is missing

This usually indicates that viruses have entered the system. Perhaps the antivirus simply failed to identify and remove malware. And so that the user cannot visually detect them, the authors of such applications use the "Hidden" or "System" attributes. In addition, the menu item "Folder Options" is removed.

Even if the malware is removed, the antivirus will not be able to restore this item. This will need to be done manually:

It is possible that the Registry Editor was not blocked after a virus attack. In this case, you can use it:

Using Win + R, launch the Run tool, enter regedit in the line and click OK.
Go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.

In the right part of the window, find the NoFolderOptions parameter, REG_DWORD type. Double-click to open it and set the value to 0.

Hiding files and folders - simple and fast way protect personal information. Of course, the first two are less reliable, and sophisticated users may accidentally or intentionally discover the secret. But FHF and the archiver will hide personal data even from experienced eyes.