How to reliably hide a folder or file from prying eyes. How to find hidden folders and files in Windows
Sep 12 2012
Welcome to the blog computer help. If you can't find certain files on your hard drive or flash drive after virus attack, do not despair and forget about this data.
In this article I will tell and give specific examples how to display hidden folders or show hidden files on your computer that were lost or simply disappeared. While reading, you can watch videos on this topic.
Looking at hidden folders
On personal computer There are two types of displayed information - visible and hidden. Some data from the developers software systems are hidden intentionally so that young or inexperienced computer users do not do unnecessary things, namely delete or change necessary files for stable system performance.
How to show hidden folders in Windows 7 | website
How to hide a folder or file
Select the file or folder we need.
Click right click mouse over it, in the displayed menu go to the very bottom and go to Properties.
Go to the very bottom of the General menu, Near “Attributes” >>> “Read Only”, click the checkbox next to Hidden.
When finished, click Apply and OK.
We close all the windows we have open. Again we go to the location we need on the computer and this information should disappear or become translucent if you have the system function to show hidden files.
In order to bring everything back and do the desired folder or file visible. We perform all the same operations, uncheck the Hidden box, apply the settings and OK.
How to hide a folder | website
The hidden files and folders feature is also useful if you use the Torrent program. In order to create, enable and place an IP filter in the Documents and Settings >>> Local Settings folder or Application Data, 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. Saves incoming traffic, which is probably limited for everyone a certain amount Gigabyte to external sources.
What we learned
Today we talked to you about how to display hidden folders or show hidden files on your computer. We learned what hidden files and folders are, where they are located and learned how to make them visible. They were also able to hide the data we needed from unwanted eyes or just strangers.
Perhaps you have questions related to how to display hidden folders on your computer. You can ask them below in the comments to this article, and also use the form with me.
Thank you for reading me on
Or why protecting data through encryption is better than simply hiding folders in Windows.
Briefly: There are many programs on the Internet for hiding individual folders and files from other computer users. These programs offer a simple method for hiding folders by filtering requests to file system. But this does not mean 100% data protection.
In fact, hidden files and folders can be seen and viewed using other means. If more is required reliable protection, follows a disk encryption program.
How to hide a folder or file - the standard way
One of the biggest desires of the user is often the desire to hide his personal documents, programs and other data somewhere away from prying eyes. The most common way to do this is:
- Use programs to hide files and folders. There are quite a lot of them now: Folder Lock, Hide Folders XP
- Use standard means in Windows: mark the folder/file as hidden, or deny access to the folder/file by specifying the rights to access the object.
Directories and files marked as “hidden” in Windows are not visible in Explorer to other system users if the user has the flag enabled: Do not show hidden folders
Visible in programs: FAR, Total Commander, etc., which do not use a standard dialog to display files and folders.
We intentionally left out EFS (Windows 2000/XP's built-in encryption) because setting up this feature requires significant effort and skill.
The convenience of these methods of hiding folders is that you don't have to do anything extra to hide them. Everything is quite simple: just one click of the mouse is enough to hide a particular folder/file, regardless of its size. But what are the disadvantages of this type of program? Let's try to figure it out.
What is the degree of protection?
Not all utilities for hiding folders will reliably hide your data. Moreover, even fewer of them, in addition to hiding them, will reliably protect them with encryption from various techniques. Many of these programs hide folders and files for only one operating system. What if there are several operating systems installed on the PC? From one system the data will not be visible, but from the other - everything is at your fingertips!
Simply hiding folders and restricting access to files does not help following cases:
Booting a PC into another operating system
or loading another OS from CD-ROM. For example Linux Live CD, Windows Live CD.
- in another OS that will connect to yours HDD drive y, all files will be visible, since there will be no restrictions or protection.
After such a download, all folders will be visible, even those that were hidden programmatically. After all, when loading into safe mode, Windows loads only the drivers necessary for the system to operate, and skips all additional ones (filter drivers) in order to discard potential failures in advance.
Remove HDD drive and connect it to another Computer.
If you remove HDD(HDD drive) and connect it to another computer, you can see and open all hidden folders and files. Even those folders to which access is prohibited (on an NTFS disk) will be visible.
There is another opportunity to view files hidden by various programs. To do this, you must have Administrator rights ( Account with Administrator powers). Because if you are a system administrator, you can uninstall programs to hide folders, or boot into crash protection mode, and then all hidden objects will become visible.
Enhanced data protection - through Encryption
How to get around all the obstacles mentioned above?
One method of protecting data is to encrypt it. Everything is quite simple. You select the data you need and assign a password to access it. If only you know the password, then only you will get access to the information!
To further increase the reliability of data storage, it is encrypted. That is, using special encryption algorithms, they transform the data in such a way that even if the file is opened, it will be impossible to read it - it will be a mess. To convert the “porridge” into normal data, they are decrypted using the same encryption algorithm.
Encryption allows you to:
Hide folders and files from prying eyes(or other users of the same computer). And also Protect data from viewing using the methods listed above and other “power” attacks.
Rohos Disk Encryption program: encrypts and hides
As practice shows, the greatest reliability of information storage is achieved by combining several methods of protection. It was this path that was chosen when creating the Rohos Disk Encryption program.
The program works according to the following principles:
- All data is stored on a separate virtual disk that the program creates. This disk is stored on your PC or USB flash drive. The disk is encrypted using high-speed encryption, that is, “on the fly”, directly during operation. Such a disk is called .
- After finishing working with files, you disconnect the disk. The drive itself and all information stored on it become inaccessible until the drive is turned on again. The disk consists of one file, which is equal in size to the disk space. This file can be seen, but it is encrypted, so information cannot be extracted from it.
- Allows you to hide and encrypt on your PC separate folders and applications such as Skype, Firefox, Chrome.
How to hide a folder using Rohos Disk Encryption:
Previously in the program Rohos Mini Drive (free) or Rohos Disk Encryption, you need to create your encrypted virtual disk R:.
In the Hide Folder dialog box, select predefined folders, such as My Documents, Profiles folders Skype and other programs.
Or specify the Folder manually by clicking on the “...” button.
There are often cases when a PC user needs to log into one or another system folder. However, finding it is not always easy, because... it is hidden. And sometimes folders become invisible due to viruses or simply appear and take up extra space.
Be that as it may, there are several basic ways to display hidden folders on the entire hard drive or only in some part of it - we will consider them in more detail below in our article today.
Method one. Enabling showing hidden folders
The Windows system allows you to enable the display of both hidden directories and files - in order to find hidden folders and files, you must do the following:
- Open "My Computer";
- At the top of the window, go to the “Tools” menu, and in the drop-down list select “Folder Options” (for Windows 7 and 8 “Folder Options”);
- In the window that opens, go to the “View” tab;
- A list will be displayed below, at the very bottom of which there is the item “Show hidden files and folders” (for Windows 7 AND 8 “Show hidden files, folders and drives”) - click on this inscription, and then click on the “Apply” button;
- If you need to display hidden system files and directories, uncheck the “Hide protected system files (not recommended)” checkbox in the same list.
If you don't see the Tools option, try pressing the Alt key (it's possible that the Explorer main menu isn't always visible).
Method two. Via the system registry
Unfortunately, there are situations when some virus has hidden folders or files and you cannot see them. Often the actions of the virus make it impossible to complete the previous step, because block operating system settings.
In such a situation, the system registry comes to the rescue, in which you need to change the parameters responsible for displaying invisible directories and files and thereby return their display. To do this you need to do the following:
- Go to Start and click the Run button. In the window that opens, enter “regedit” and press “Enter” (for Windows 7 and 8, just enter the word “regedit” in search bar Start menu). Thus, a window will appear on the screen system registry, in which we need to find the item we need.
- On the left side of the window you will see a list of registry keys. Go to the following sections one by one: HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Explorer, Advanced.
- After moving to necessary section With right side window, find the “Hidden” parameter, double-click on it and replace the number 0 with the number 1 in the “Value” field in the window that appears. If this parameter is in this section no, you will have to create it by right-clicking on the empty space on the right side of the registry window and selecting “Create” from the drop-down list, and then “Parameter”. Rename the created parameter to “Hidden” and assign it a value of 1 by clicking on it 2 times.
- Next, go to the registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SOFTWARE, Microsoft, Windows, CurrentVersion, Explorer, Advanced, Folder, Hidden, SHOWALL.
- Here, find the “CheckedValue” item and assign it the value 1. Using the above method, create this item if it is absent, also enter the number 1 in it.
Method three. Windows Command Line
Team Windows string allows you to perform many tasks with the operating system, including displaying hidden folders and even files on your hard drive.
To open the command prompt, click on the Start icon and then click on the Run button. In the window that opens, enter “Cmd” and click “OK”. For Windows 7 and 8, just enter the phrase “Cmd” in the search bar of the Start menu.
A window (usually black) will appear on the screen - this is the command line. To show hidden elements in any specific folder, you must first go to it. To do this, enter the following commands one by one (after each command, press “Enter”):
- X:, where X is a letter local disk(for example, C:), where the files or folders you are looking for are located.
- cd (for example, cd c:/windows/), which stores hidden elements.
- After going to the desired directory, all that remains is to view its contents. To display only hidden folders and files in the window, enter: dir /a:h (if you enter the “dir” command without parameters, only visible objects will be displayed).
- To make the found folders visible again and able to be viewed through Explorer while in the same directory, run the following for each object: attrib -s -h . This command removes the “hidden” and “system” attributes (if files or folders are system files, it is impossible to remove the “hidden” attribute from them). Attention! If there are spaces in the file or folder name, you must write their names in quotes (for example, attrib -s -h “Hidden folder 1”).
Method four. Support programs
Exists big number programs for Windows that help you view hidden files or folders. One of these is the famous “Total Commander”.
Total Commander is one of the most popular file managers for Windows. Previously it was called that - Windows Commander, however, was forced to change its name in order to avoid problems with Microsoft Corporation.
Download and install the program. After launching it, do the following:
- Go to the "Configuration" menu at the top of the window;
- From the drop-down list, select “Settings...”;
- In the window that appears, find the item “Contents of panels” and go to it;
- Several settings items will appear in the middle of the window, check the box for “Show hidden/system files” and click the “Apply” button.
Thus, in the main window of the Total Commander program you can go to any hidden directories and even open hidden files if they exist in current directory(where you are now) - they will be visible to you along with ordinary ones.
These are folders that have the Hidden attribute set. Typically, folders with this attribute are not displayed in Explorer. In order for hidden folders to begin to appear, you need to make changes to the operating system settings. IN this material you will learn about how to show hidden folders in Windows 7.
In order to force the Windows 7 operating system to show hidden folders, we need to open any folder and press the ALT button on the keyboard.
After clicking on ALT key, under address bar A series of drop-down menus will appear: File, Edit, View, Tools and Help. Here we need to open the “Tools” drop-down menu and select “Folder Options”.
After this, it will open before you small window called "Folder Options". In this window you can configure all the basic parameters that relate to the display of folders, files and drives in Windows Explorer 7.
It should be noted that if you are unable to open the “Folder Options” window through the drop-down menu, then you can use the search in. To do this, open the Start menu and type “Folder Options.” After this, the Windows 7 operating system will find the desired program and will offer to open it.
So, you have opened the “Folder Options” window, in order to show hidden folders in Windows 7 you need to go to the “View” tab and find the options that are responsible for displaying hidden folders.
You need two parameters:
- “Hide protected system files” – you need to disable it;
- “Show hidden files, folders and drives” – you need to enable it.
After making changes, close the window by clicking on the “OK” button to save the changes. After this, you will be able to see hidden folders and files. Now, if there is such a need, you can remove the “Hidden” attribute and the folder will become normal. To do this, right-click on the folder and select “Properties”. After that, disable the “Hidden” function and close the window.
Once you have cleared the “Hidden” attribute, you can disable the display of hidden folders. Further this folder will be displayed anyway.
Sometimes you need to hide important information from prying eyes, from other computer users - i.e. make folders and files hidden, invisible and thereby protect personal information. It could be text documents And private photos, videos and other files that need to be hidden.
First, let's look at what hidden files are.
Hidden files(or folders) - usually these are rarely used files with attribute "hidden". Such files not displayed in Windows OS, if in folder properties on the tab<View> there is a parameter - <Не показывать скрытые файлы, папки и диски> . By default, the system provides this. If you want to see all hidden folders on the computer, USB flash drive or a portable (portable) hard drive - supply the parameter<Show hidden files, folders and drives>.
In Windows 7, to enable viewing (display) of hidden folders and disable their display, click on the tab<Сервис> - <Параметры> - <Вид>and in additional parameters folders select the required action
To show hidden files and folders in the operating room Windows system XP go to<Сервис> - <Свойства папки> - <Вид>and you can assign an action - hide or display folders and files that have the "Hidden" attribute
Now that you know how to see hidden files on your computer- let's learn to hide them
An easy way to hide files
The Windows operating system itself has the ability to hide files and folders from free viewing. You can hide files and folders in both Windows XP and Windows 7, just click right key mouse over the selected file or folder, select Properties and on the "General" tab, check the box next to "Hidden". In the pop-up window, you will be asked to apply the hidden attribute either to one folder only - all other files and folders in the selected folder will remain visible, or to this folder and all (it contains) subfolders and files, i.e. everything in this folder will become hidden
In the same way you can remove hidden attributes from files and folders - just uncheck the box, provided that you are shown showing hidden files (see above)
Hiding files and folders using the command line
You can also change file attributes using command line by writing the ATTRIB command to the path to the file (for example C:\LamerKomp.txt) and assigning the “Hidden” attribute (+h). For example, a file can be made hidden with the following code:
attrib C:\LamerKomp.txt +h /S
You can hide the folder like this
attrib C:\www.site +h /S /D
If you need to show (display) hidden files, write the same thing, but put “-” before h - this will remove the hidden attribute
Also, for convenience, you can create a bat file with the following code. About how to change the attributes of files and folders BAT file you can read in the article