This is the first among a series of posts on administering Windows . It starts with how to see the files and folders that were hidden by Windows for some reason. The series is actually inspired from the one done by Samanathon on Starting your Day with a fresh Computer. He did a good job and I am a regular visitor of Saman’s Blog.

A Super Hidden or a Protected Syetem File is a file that is normally not shown in the Windows Explorer even if you have enabled Show Hidden files (Tools>>Folder Options>>View>>Show Hidden Files and Folders) in Windows Explorer). This is because if some of these files are deleted or changed Windows may encounter a fatal error. Some of such folders are :

• C:\Windows\system32\dllcache
• System Volume Information – this is in all the drives
• Recycler – which is also in all the drives

So the first step involved is to make Windows show all the Super Hidden files. This can be done in two ways. One is directly through Windows Explorer Tools>>Folder Options and the other is through . So the former being easier and straight forward I’ll discuss it first.

1 . Through Windows Explorer

In Windows Explorer from Tools (Alt+T) menu take “View” tab in “Folder Options”.Make sure that you have selected Show Hidden Files and Folders and that you have unchecked Hide Protected operating system files options. Click Apply and then OK. This will enable you to see system files that had previously been hidden from your view.

2 . Through Registry Editing

This is a little more complex.(It is recommended that you read the following posts before you go into the registry. Try this if you know Registry editing. Make a backup of the registry before you proceed.( The Introduction to Windows Registry , Know how to backup your registry )

Follow these steps..

1 . Run ( WIN+R ) regedit and open registry editor.

Go to the Key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.

2 . In there you will see a Registry DWORD named ShowSuperHidden Make the value 1 instead of 0.

3 . Now all you need to do is to restart Windows Explorer. to do so you can goto Start>>Shut Down and Click Cancel while holding down SHIFT+CTRL+ALT. Now press ALT+CTRL+DEL this will bring Task Manager. Take File>>New Task and type explorer and press Enter.

Now if you go to any drive you can see the previously Hidden files there. Note that you will still need to enable Show Hidden files option in Folder Option.

You can change the default drive icons available in My Computer under Windows XP through the registry. Although it is done via registry the task is pretty simple and straight forward. (You can also use the Autorun method – please read that article if you prefer to do so)

Open registry editor ( WIN+R » regedit )

Navigate to the key
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DriveIcons

Here you can see some sub keys with name as drive letters in you system.

Each one of them will have another sub key DefaultIcon . The Default string value here contains the path to the icon used for that drive. Double Click on this and set the path of the icon you want to use.

This will change the default icon of that drive. Repeat it for other drives also. I don’t know any easier way, but if you know just post a comment and I will publish it here and link back to your blog.

You can disable access to select drives for a user using the Registry. Create a REG_DWORD value named NoViewOnDrive under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
\Policies\Explorer and enter its value as follows. You must select decimal first and then add the following values to disable respective drives.

A – 1, B – 2, C – 4, D – 8, E – 16, F – 32, G – 64, H – 128, I – 256, J – 512, K – 1024, L – 2048, M – 4096, N – 8192, O – 16384, P – 32768, Q – 65536, R – 131072, S – 262144, T – 524288, U – 1048576, V – 2097152, W – 4194304, X – 8388608, Y – 16777216, Z – 33554432, ALL – 67108863

If you need to disable access to more than one drive you may add the values corresponding to all those drives and set the value. That is if you need to disable D and F drives add 8 (D)+32 (F) = 40 to the key.

To add the restriction to all users on the Compter just make the same key under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE instead of HKEY_CURRENT_USER. If somebody tries to access a drive on which restriction is imposed this error will be shown “The operation has bee cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer“.

Please backup your registry before editing it so that you can disable any changes made. If you want to prevent copying of your data to a USB drive here is how you can do it.

I think you all remember OKTHEN, the one who told us all an easy way to list files and folders in a directory into a file through a context menu. He posted it as a comment. Well last day he commented on the post to correct some mistakes in the comment. Here is his new comment :

sorry i messed up a while back
cmd /c dir %1 /a /b >%1\list.txt

would not only be unable to list files in folders with long file names but also it would not be able to output the list.txt to a folder with a long file name in order for it to work with long folder names, u need to use quotes around the %1’s also, if you use >> instead of > It will append to any existing list.txt in the folder you are catalogging instead of replacing the text file with a new one

if you want to append to a pre-existing list.txt when one already exists in the output folder then use:

cmd /c dir “%1? /a /b /s >>”%1?\list.txt

or if you want it to replace a possibly pre-existing list.txt in the same output folder every time

cmd /c dir %1 /a /b >%1\list.txt

————————————————
if you don’t wanna screw around in regedit
————————————————
then copy the following to a notepad document and then save it (where you can find it to click on) as listfiles.reg (NOTE make sure when u are in the save as dialog box in notepad you must use quotes around “listfiles.reg” otherwise it will loose its .reg extension and be useless)

[Start copy below this line]

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Make FileList]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Make FileList\command]
@=”cmd /c dir \”%1\” /a /b /s >>\”%1\”\\list.txt”

[End copy above this line]

once the above is saved into a file called “listfiles.reg”
find the file in whatever folder you put it in
Right click on the file, left click on Merge
a box will ask are you sure? Yes/No click Yes

now you have a new command available “Make FileList”
when you right click any folder you will see this option

if you left click on the option it will then create a new file within that folder called list.txt which contains the contents of that folder as it was each time you told it to make a list

i realized awhile back i did not afford for long folder names but only now decided to correct it since i want to use almost the exact same thing to create a context deltree command (for quick erasure of files when i want it without using 1: shift+delete or 2: telling recycle bin to never be active keep files)

I am sorry that after his comment I didn’t check the method he mentioned. Actually his methos is easier. He has made it a lot more easier this time by telling a method to do it by using a reg file.

Hi OKTHEN,
thank you very much. BTW since I don’t know your email or website I can’t contact you. So please send me your contact details if you don’t mind. If you are interested in doing a guest post please ..

Windows saves the list of wallpapers ever used on the system in a registry Key.

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion
ExplorerWallpaperMRU

All those Registry Binary values here are the address to the images you used as wallpapers.

The last part in this binary makes no sense to me but I think this i information about the dimensions and style of the image.

There are times when you want to prevent others from copying your data but you still need them to be able to view it on your computer. The following tip will help you do exactly that.

As always it is the registry that comes to your rescue. Open the Registry Editor by typing regedit in RUN (WIN+R) dialog (). Go to th key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\
StorageDevicePolicies

Create a new DWORD named WriteProtect (Right Click on right pane and select New»DWORD). Edit the value and make it 1. Just restart Windows explorer and you are done. Next time somebody tries to copy data to the external storage device they will see

If you need to copy something just make the stored value of WriteProtect to 0

**Tips : to restart Windows Explorer take Shutdown. Click Cancel while holding down SHIFT+CTRL+ALT, this will close Windows Explorer. Now take TASK MANAGER by pressing ALT+CTRL+DEL take File>>New Task>> [ explorer ] and press Enter. **