As a popular operating system Windows is mainly designed for the end-users or less or non-technical users. There are different protection mechanisms for the Windows operating system for accidental user operations. Hiding files and folders are some of them. By default, hidden files and folders do not show in the file explorer.
What Is Hidden File, Folder or Drive?
In windows files, folders and drives can be hidden for regular daily use. Hiding is an attribute of the files, folders, or drives. Hiding files, folders and drives will not protect them from unwanted access. They will just not be displayed like a regular file but can be accessed and viewed by showing hidden files or using simple tools.
Show Hidden Files, Folders or Drives In Windows 7, Windows Server 2008
In order to unhide the hidden files on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 we will open the Folder Options menu. First, open the File Explorer like below and then from Organize click to the Folder and search options menu like below.
Then we will find the Show hidden files, folder, and drives configuration and select it. As you will see the Don't show hidden files, folders and drives will be disabled. The last step is clicking to the OK or Apply below.
Show Hidden Files, Folders or Drives In Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2016
Hidden files, folders, and drives can be easily displayed in Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2016 by following these steps. First, open the File Explorer . Navigate to the View tab. From the configuration, checkboxes select Hidden items which should be enabled. This will show the hidden files, folders, and drives.
When we take a look to drive C: we can see that some files or folders are shown which are not shown previously. In the following screen ProgramData and $WINRE_BACKUP_PARTITON:MARKER are hidden files or folders. But currently displayed as we enabled showing hidden files and folders.
Hide/Unhide File or Folder
We can change specific folders hidden attributes easily via Properties . First right-click on the folder and click to the Properties like below. These steps can be also applied to a file to make the file visible too.
In the properties window General tab, you will see a setting or checkbox named Hidden just unselect this setting and click to the OK or Apply to apply the new configuration. If the “Hidden” checkbox is not selected it means this file/folder is visible but if the “Hidden” checkbox is selected it means this file/folder is not visible or hidden.
