Show hidden files and folders

Heres somethin to think about - Whats on your computer?
You've selected to show all hidden files on your computer. Now you'll be able to see all hidden files, right? Nope! Some files will not be displayed even when you have selected to show all. Its understandable to hide important files from a novice user but consider. How can you say delete something if you cant see it? Is something hidden from the user a security issue? (somewhere to hide). So for users who dont know I'll ask

What commands do you guys use to show the different hidden files?

When I was learning ms dos we use to have a competition amoungst us to find and delete hidden files. So

Heres another : What really, really hidden files would the personal security minded user delete?

Make sure you uncheck hide important operating system files. If you don't think its showing all you can always use command prompt and use the command dir.

On Windows Me and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 systems, ls supports the -X option, which displays the extended attributes of the file(s). This description is shown beneath the long output format already described.

For ls -X A or ls -X a, the display format is:

Attributes: attributelist

where attributelist is a comma-separated list of one or more of:


Verbose Terse Archive A Compressed C Directory D Encrypted E Hidden H Normal N Offline O ReparsePoint R ReadOnly RO Sparse SP System S Temporary T

For ls -X D or ls -X d, the display format is:

ACE: perm usergrpname ace_flags accessmode

where:




perm is one of Allow or Deny.

usergrpname is the user or group name as taken from the Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 Security Access Manager registry. Any spaces embedded in the name are replaced by + characters.

ace_flags is a comma-separated list of the flags for Discretionary Access Control Entities:



If no flags are set, ls displays a single -. ACE stands for Access Control Entry; for more information, see your Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 system documentation.

accessmode is the set of access permissions (if Allow is displayed) or restrictions (if Deny is displayed) for this ACE. These can be any or none of the following:



On Windows systems, ls treats files and directories marked with the hidden attribute like POSIX and UNIX file names beginning with . (period).

The -A, -b, -f, -g, -L, -m, -n, -o, -p, -s, -X, and -x options are extensions to the POSIX and XPG.4 standard.

The -X option is specific to the Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 and Windows Me versions of ls.

Yep....Just what i was thinking too! :eyespop:
:rofl:

too wordy you think? :rofl: :rofl:

I thought you were typing in a foreign language at first jazzman. I was just about to remind you about the site rules on using other languages :rofl:

lol! Techspeak IS another language Vidster! You should know that!!! :rofl: :rofl:

attrib, yep. Is there away of making Explorer show these files?

not sure exactly what you mean, you can show hidden files and folders in xp by unchecking the approriate boxes in folder options, but if you want to show all attributes in explorer, maybe febooti filetweak is what your looking for, unles you care to elaborate further?

http://www.febooti.com/products/filetweak/screenshots/

I think you mean files like IE's index.dat files, right? these are files that will not show up in cmd.exe or explorer unless their parent folders attribute have neen changed, or you can view them from true DOS (boot disk).

When you navigate to: "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files" all you will should see is a lot of files which are your temp internet files, however, you see NO index.dat files, even when you have set show all files including system files in explorer, you will not normally be able to see these files through cmd.exe either.

But infact there are is a "super hidden" folder in the "Temporary Internet Files" folder, this is named (on my comp at least) "Content.IE5". In the "Content.IE5" is a set of subfolders and a file named "index.dat". This index.dat files contains a list of all your internet searches, or at least since the last time you used a program to kill the index.dat file as using IE's "delete files" will NOT delete the index.dat files content.

To view the "Content.IE5" in the "Temporary Internet Files" folder:
Open a command windows and copy the following then press enter

ATTRIB -S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files"

Now when you navigate to your Temporary Internet Files you should see the "Content.IE5" folder open it then open the index.dat file with note pad, scroll past the machine code stuff and you should see your past internet searches.

A little while back I made a BATCH file to kill some index.dat files, I'll post it here since it may be relevant. I used Windows XP SP2 with IE v6 at the time of making the BATCH file. If you are really security minded it may be a better idea to use cipher.exe on the index.dat files AFTER they have been deleted since the files will still be there, just maked for overwriting, I just made them zero byte files first.

Here is the BATCH file:

@ECHO OFF
if %OS% == Windows_NT (
TASKKILL /F /IM iexplore.exe /FI "STATUS eq RUNNING" >NUL
TASKKILL /F /IM explorer.exe >NUL && (
ping -n 3 127.0.0.1 >NUL
ATTRIB -S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files" >NUL
ATTRIB -S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5" >NUL
ATTRIB -S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\History" >NUL
ATTRIB -S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\History\History.IE5" >NUL
ATTRIB -S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Cookies" >NUL
TYPE NUL > "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat" >NUL
DEL /F /S /Q "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\*.*"
TYPE NUL > "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\index.dat" >NUL
DEL /F /S /Q "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\History\*.*"
TYPE NUL > "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Cookies\index.dat" >NUL
DEL /F /S /Q "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Cookies\*.*"
ping -n 3 127.0.0.1 >NUL
ATTRIB +S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files" >NUL
ATTRIB +S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5" >NUL
ATTRIB +S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\History" >NUL
ATTRIB +S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Local Settings\History\History.IE5" >NUL
ATTRIB +S "%Systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\%Username%\Cookies" >NUL
echo.
echo Operation Complete...
PAUSE
START explorer.exe
EXIT
)
) else (
echo.
echo ERROR:This BATCH file is NOT intended for use on "%OS%" systems,
echo all batch operations will now terminate...
echo.
pause
EXIT
)