How To Show Hidden Files And Folders For Most Windows Operating Systems

How To Show Hidden Files And Folders For Most Windows Operating Systems
Compliments of this site:

http://legaltricks.blogspot.com

so don't give me the credit for it.

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Windows 95:

Open My Computer.

Select the View menu and click Options.

Select the View Tab.

Select the Show all files Radio Button.

Click OK.

Windows 98:

Open My Computer.

Select the View menu and click Folder Options.

Select the View Tab.

In the Hidden files section select Show all files.

Click OK.

Windows ME:

Open My Computer.

Select the Tools menu and click Folder Options.

Select the View Tab.

Under the Hidden files and folders heading select Show hidden files and folders.

Uncheck the Hide protected operating system files (recommended) option.

Click Yes to confirm.

Click OK.

Click Start, Programs and Accessories and open Windows Explorer.

Select a hard drive from the left hand side of the Windows Explorer window.

Select View the Entire contents of this drive.

Windows 2000:

Open My Computer.

Select the Tools menu and click Folder Options.

Select the View Tab.

Under the Hidden files and folders heading select Show hidden files and folders.

Uncheck the Hide protected operating system files (recommended) option.

Click Yes to confirm.

Click OK.

Windows XP:

Click Start.

Open My Computer.

Select the Tools menu and click Folder Options.

Select the View Tab.

Under the Hidden files and folders heading select Show hidden files and folders.

Uncheck the Hide protected operating system files (recommended) option.

Click Yes to confirm.

Click OK.

Add Encrypt / Decrypt Options to Windows Vista Right-Click M

If you use the built-in file encryption in Windows Vista, you might be interested in adding an option to the right-click menu to more easily encrypt and decrypt your files, rather than having to use the file properties dialog.

Adding this to the menu couldn't be simpler - there's only a single registry key to add.

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search box, and then find the following registry key:

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HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

In the right-hand pane, create a new 32-bit DWORD value called EncryptionContextMenu and give it a value of 1.

Now when you right-click on a file, you'll see a new option called Encrypt.



When you choose this option, you'll receive the following dialog, asking if you want to encrypt just the file, or also the parent folder. You can also choose just the file as the default.



Once the files are encrypted, you'll notice that the title of the file is now green, indicating that it's been encrypted. The right-click option will also now change to Decrypt.



Definitely much simpler… makes me wonder why this wasn't a built-in option.

Heres the registry hack for u to download.....

Add Home Directory Icon to the Desktop in Windows Vista

One of the new changes in Windows Vista is that each user has a "Home" directory that is actually accessible and meant to be used. In XP and 2k, you had a hidden home directory that you weren't meant to muck around in.

Some of the new features, like the Downloads directory, are only accessible through your Home directory, which is why it makes sense to put an icon for it right on the desktop.

To do this, click the Start button, and then right click on your User name. Choose the Show on Desktop option:


Now your home directory icon should show up on your desktop:

Add User Accounts Utility (Userpasswords2) to Control Panel

Hidden away in the Windows directory is a separate utility that can be used to perform certain user administration functions not provided in the normal interface. Instead of typing "control userpasswords2″ into the run box, you can just add it as an icon in your Control Panel.

The original idea to do this came from Kelly's Korner, but her script doesn't work right on Windows Vista, so I modified it and have provided it here for everybody.

To get to this alternate User Accounts screen after installation, first select User Accounts in the Control Panel.



Now you will see the new item named "User Accounts Admin (Alternate)".



For those of you unfamiliar, you can use this utility to manage saved network passwords or require Ctrl+Alt+Delete.



You can also use the Users tab to enable auto-login by unchecking the box for "Users must enter a user name and password".



One of the other benefits of adding this to the control panel is that it will now show up in the start menu search box:



Installation

Simply download and extract the zipfile and double-click on the registry hack file included. To remove, double-click on the remove script.

Assign a Shortcut Key to the Snipping Tool in Windows Vista

Windows Vista includes a screen capture/screenshot tool that is actually pretty decent. You can take region captures or full screenshots and easily save them using this tool.

Note: The snipping tool doesn't exist on every version of Vista. To turn it on, you'll have to go to "Turn Windows features on or off" in Control Panel, and check the box for the Tablet PC utilities.



The only problem with this tool is that there's no hotkey to bring up the window. But we'll fix that…

Bring up the Start Menu, and then click on All Programs. Click the Accessories folder, and you'll see the Snipping Tool.



Right click it and go to the Properties screen. You'll see a Shortcut key text box:



The only annoying thing with this trick is that you can't use the PrintScreen key… but no big deal. I assigned Ctrl + F12 because that's something easy to remember that I don't use for anything else.

Enable "Ubuntu Style" Logons in Windows Vista

If you like the way Ubuntu requires you to enter your username and password instead of clicking on an icon, you can enable the same thing for Windows Vista in a somewhat similar style logon process. This is really most useful for home users, as domain users should already see this screen.

It's not precisely the same style as Ubuntu, but it's the closest we're gonna get.



Manual Registry Tweak

Open regedit.exe through the start menu search box and navigate to the following key, which you might have to create.



Create these two new 32-bit DWORD values, giving them both a value of 1:
DisableCAD
DontDisplayLastUserName

To remove this tweak just delete the two keys.

Note: It's not a requirement to use the DisableCAD key. What this does is prevent the "Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete" screen, which is really quite ugly in Vista. If you'd rather use CAD you can omit that key.

Downloadable Registry Tweak

Download and unzip, and then double-click on UbuntuLogonVista.reg in the file. There's another registry file to remove it.

Completely Disable the System Tray on Windows Vista

If you are the type of person that never uses any applications in the system tray, you might be interested in this registry hack to turn it off entirely. I can't imagine using my own system this way, but we're all about providing information.

Note that you could also use this in reverse… if your system tray is disabled and you don't know why, you should check this registry key.



You can even remove the clock if you'd like, by right-clicking on the taskbar and choosing Properties. It's on the Notification Area tab.

Manual Registry Hack

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then navigate down to the following key (Create if it doesn't exist):

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HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Create a new 32-bit DWORD value in the right hand pane with these values:
Name: NoTrayItemsDisplay
Value: 1

You will have to logoff and back on for this to take effect. To remove the hack, just delete the key, or change the value to 0.

Note that disabling the system tray doesn't actually prevent system tray apps from running, it just hides them. You should still disable any applications that aren't needed.

Update: Note that the same registry key may exist in more than one location, so if you are trying to reverse this hack, you should search the registry for NoTrayItemsDisplay.

Context Menu to Copy Text File To the Clipboard in vista

If you are the type of person that likes to keep a lot of information stored in text-format files on your drive, you've probably encountered a scenario where you want to copy that information to the clipboard… so you open the file in notepad, select all, then copy to the clipboard. What if you could do it with a simple context menu item instead?

Using a little registry hacking and the clip.exe utility built into Windows Vista, we can do just that, and we can even hide it behind the Shift + Right-Click menu so that it won't waste space on the menu unless you hold down the shift key.

Using the Copy to Clipboard Hack

Simply hold down the Shift key and right-click on a text file, and you'll see a new item for "Copy to Clipboard":



Now you'll have the information on the clipboard for easy pasting into whatever application you'd like:



Note:

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If you are using Windows XP, you can [url=ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Services/TechNet/samples/PS/Win98/Reskit/FILE/CLIP.EXE]download clip.exe[/url] from Microsoft. Just save the file in the Windows directory and the rest of the hack should work for you.

Manual Registry Hack (for .txt files)

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:

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HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\txtfile\shell

Underneath each file type in the registry (for instance txtfile), there is a shell key with a list of actions under it. We'll create a new key called "copytoclip", and then a key under it called "command". Set the default value of "copytoclip" to something useful like "Copy Contents to Clipboard", and then set the default value of "command" to the following:

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cmd /c clip < "%1″

What we're doing is running a command prompt, and then piping the file into the clip.exe utility. You could do the same thing from the command prompt, or in a script.

You could duplicate this same tweak for other file types, such as html or code files, by finding their key in the registry and adding the same menu items.

Downloadable Registry Hack

Simply download, extract, and double-click on CopyContentsToClipboardTXT.reg to the clipboard. You can remove the hacks with the RemoveCopyContentsToClipboard.reg file.

Just remember to hold down the shift key while right-clicking on a text file.

Create a Custom Boot Logo for Windows Vista

NOTE: THIS DOES NOT WORK WITH VISTA SP1. IF YOU ATTEMPT THIS IN SP1, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO BOOT YOUR COMPUTER.

If you are a desktop customization kinda guy, one of the first things you'll want to figure out is how to create a customized boot logo. There's a little utility that you can use to create the boot logo formats.

DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS UTILITY IF YOU HAVE VISTA SP1

First you'll need to download the Vista Boot Logo Generator 1.1 utility, which we'll use to create the correct logo image type. Once it's installed, you need to make sure that you run the application as administrator:



We should choose an appropriate logo file. Since I'm a big fan of linux, and not as big a fan of Windows Vista, I chose an image of Tux making windows suck that I found over here.



Choose two versions of the image, one needs to be 800×600 at 24 bit color, and the other 1024×768 at the same color depth. Both files must be in Bitmap(BMP) format. Save the file somewhere like your desktop, because we can't yet copy directly to the correct directory, until we take ownership of the file.

To take ownership of the file, you'll have to open an administrator command prompt. (type cmd into the start menu search box, and hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter), and then run this command:

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takeown /f C:\Windows\System32\en-US\winload.exe.mui

Now run this command, substituting geek for your username:

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cacls C:\Windows\System32\en-US\winload.exe.mui /G geek:F

Now copy the file that you created into the C:\windows\system32\en-US\ directory. Make sure you choose the overwrite option.

Now you'll need to use the msconfig utility. Just type msconfig into the start menu search box, and then click the Boot tab:



Check the "No GUI boot" option, and we're all ready to reboot and test it out. Sweet!

Create a Shortcut to Turn the Desktop Icons On or Off

he solution comes through a small utility written by one of the Desktop Sidebar programmers (an alternate sidebar with loads of modules). Just so we're clear, this utility does the same thing as a right-click on the desktop and toggling the "Show Desktop Icons" item.



Setting Up the Shortcut

The first thing you'll need to do is download the HideDesktopIcons application and save it somewhere other than the desktop, preferably somewhere where it won't be deleted.



Now you need to create a shortcut to the executable, and put it somewhere like the Quick Launch bar, which you can quickly access by typing the following into the location bar:

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shell:Quick Launch

Now you have a shortcut that can be used for quick access…



To assign a hotkey, right-click on the shortcut and choose Properties to assign a hotkey (I use Ctrl+Alt+D since it's easy to remember).



Now you can access the desktop icons through a shortcut icon or shortcut key.

Note: It's been brought to my attention that the shortcut keys don't work if the shortcut is in the Quick Launch bar. In this case you'd need to make another shortcut for the start menu or (ironically) the desktop that contains the shortcut key. If you put the shortcut into the start menu you might have to logout and back in for it to work.

Supporting Files (If Needed)

If you get an error when you try to run this application, you probably need to have the Microsoft C++ runtime installed, which you can get get from the following link:
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x86)

Download Application

Note: I'm also posting a local mirror copy here because the Desktop Sidebar forums were down while trying to write this article.

Create Icons to Start the Screensaver on Windows Vista

This question is so common that I figured I'd write up the answer for everybody, as well as provide a downloadable set of shortcuts to all the default screensavers.

You can read how to actually do this, or skip down and just download the set of shortcuts and choose the ones you want.

Create Screensaver Icon

Right-click on the desktop and choose New \ Shortcut from the menu.



In order to launch the screensaver, you'll need to enter the full path to the screensaver file, followed by "/s"

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%systemroot%\system32\Bubbles.scr /s

You would want to substitute the name of the screensaver where you see "Bubbles.scr" above. Also note that I used %systemroot% instead of C:\windows because not every install uses the C: drive.

If you don't know the filename, you can browse down to your system32 folder and then search for ".scr" using the search box:



You should see all of the names of all the screensavers installed on your system, which you can use in the location field.

Download Shortcut Icons

If you've prefer, I made shortcuts for all the default screensavers and zipped them up. You can just download and extract the file, and then use whichever ones you want.



Note: I'm fairly certain I didn't miss any default screensavers in the list, but it's certainly possible since it's 6am and I'm still awake.

Disable All Notification Balloons in Windows Vista

If you find the popup notification balloons in the Windows Vista system tray to be too annoying, you might be interested to know that you can completely disable them. This would be an extreme option, of course… typically you can just turn them off in any offending applications, but if you want to disable them across the board, this is the solution.



Note:

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I'm not necessarily recommending that everybody do this… you should only bother with it if you need to solve this particular problem.

Manual Registry Hack

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:

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HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Right-click on the right-hand pane, and create a new 32-bit DWORD with the following values:
Name: EnableBalloonTips
Value: 0

You'll have to logoff and back on in order to see the change… or to be more correct, you won't see any popup balloons anymore.

Downloadable Registry Hack

Simply download, extract, and double-click on the DisableNotificationBalloons.reg file to enter the information into the registry. There's also an included EnableNotificationBalloons file that will reverse the change.

Download DisableNotificationBalloons Registry Hack

Customize Your Welcome Picture Choices in Windows Vista

Everybody knows how to change their Vista logon/start menu picture, but if you select a new picture, Windows Vista removes the last picture from the list entirely, leaving just the new picture and the default pictures. Does anybody really use the robot or the fish picture?

What you can do instead is add your pictures to the list of default pictures, and delete pictures you'll never use.

In case you don't remember, you open Control Panel \ User Accounts \ Change Your Picture to get to the list of pictures.


All of the pictures are stored in a hidden folder buried deep within your program data directory.

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C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures

All you have to do is just remove the pictures you don't want, and add the pictures you do want. You just need to make sure that your pictures are 128×128 resolution in bitmap format. If you want the pictures to be ordered in a certain way, you can name them in order.

If you'd like to copy your current picture, it is stored in the following file:

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C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Temp\.tmp.bmp

The default user picture (the flower) is stored in the following file:

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C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\user.bmp

Now that we've customized the list of pictures, you can see that the baby tux picture I added is still in the list, even though we're using one of the default pictures.

Customize the Manufacturer Support Info in Windows Vista

If you have a computer with pre-installed Windows Vista, most likely you'll notice the manufacturer's support information when you look in the system properties window. If you'd like to customize this information or use a picture of your own in this space, you can do so easily.

Right-click on Computer and choose Properties or use the Win+Break key combination to bring up the System properties screen:



Close-up view:



To edit the information in this screen, you'll need to open up your registry editor and navigate down to the following key:

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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OEMInformation

Note: If this key does not exist, you can download the following registry file, which you will want to edit before double-clicking to add into the registry.



You can modify the following fields and put any values you'd like into them, with the exception of the Logo key, which you probably shouldn't change.

Manufacturer
SupportHours
SupportPhone
SupportURL
Logo

The last important step is to either create or modify a bitmap file stored at the location specified in the Logo key, usually set to:

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C:\Windows\System32\oemlogo.bmp

For best results, you'll want to use a small logo file, preferably somewhere around 100×100 height/width. Also note that copying the file to that folder will require administrative permissions.

Disable Delete Confirmation Dialog in Windows Vista

Every time you delete a file, Windows asks you "Are you sure you want to move this file to the Recycle Bin?" This is typically a good thing, to prevent you from deleting files by accident, but if you are trying to do some cleanup and need to delete a lot of files, you might not want to be prompted every single time.

There's a simple way to turn it off, thankfully, although I'd recommend you leave it on the majority of the time.



Just right-click on your Recycle Bin and choose Properties from the menu


Now you'll see the Trash Properties dialog, and notice the "Display delete confirmation dialog" at the bottom.



Just uncheck the box, and close the dialog. No more confirmations! (I'd still recommend that you turn it back on when you are done cleaning up your computer)