Windows Explorer: how can I hide. . . that which is already hidden??

Phil314 · 19 Apr 2014

GrayGhost2 said:

Hi Atrucker :)
My 32bit Win7 has both "hide" settings to "True", but AppData is always visible.
I notice (my) C:\Users\Owner folder has a padlock. At first Win7 was so exasperating I went in all guns blazing at security settings, and I did not document anything much at all.
So maybe (my) AppData is caught up in my early slash-and-burn approach to Security settings ?
I wonder if Phil's AppData is a shortcut ? I am no expert, my curiosity is piqued.

Hi GrayGhost: Well I'm very relieved to know I'm not the only one with something as critically important as AppData evading all efforts to hide it. I can definitely confirm that what I'm looking at is not a shortcut. It's the real McCoy, stuck there, in its entirety, in C:\Users\User. . . with all my Contacts info in the folder immediately beneath. (And yes, that's the real McCoy, tool: I temporarily renamed it to test out and of course, Windows Mail couldn't then find a single name and email address anywhere on this 'pooter.)

Brink · 19 Apr 2014

Hello Phil,

Please post a screenshot of Windows Explorer showing AppData in it to see if it may help to ID what the issue could be. :)

If the AppData folder is not faded while showing, then type the command below in an elevated command prompt, and press Enter to set the hide attribute for the folder.

ATTRIB +H "%UserProfile%\AppData" /S /D

File and Folder - Hide or Unhide

Hope this helps, :)
Shawn

Phil314 · 19 Apr 2014

GrayGhost2 said:

Hi Phil314 :)
My PC experience started with Amstrad then Win-3.1 > Win-95.
I vaguely remember WinXP was a shock .. days/weeks of frustration ... up until 12 months ago she was my mistress (till death us do part) . . . My first Win-7 came very late (2012) on a new laptop to replace a sick XP laptop . . .

Ye Gods, GrayGhost: an almost identical experience to mine! I started with Amstrad and then wound up with a x386 running Windows for Workgroups (I think, or was there an earlier version?) and then successively 'pooters with Windows 95, then '98 and -- thankfully bypassing Windows Millennium or 2000 or whatever it was -- finally into XP. The sheer unadulterated joy of Windows XP.

I fairly hammer my computers with work so when the XP desktop gave up I really had no choice but to go to Vista. That was. . . Horrendous. Not only did it take ages to even understand it, the OS never worked properly anyway (there was a serious systemic flaw in Vista's ability to deal with Internet connections. Not that Microsoft cared or anything. . .)

I've now acquired a replacement rig with Windows 7 on account of reading so much praise for, er, Windows 7. Certainly seemed preferable to Windows 8. Of course, I then find that Microsoft's arrogance hasn't changed in the slightest and I'm suddenly confronting a baffling screen which says My Libraries has 3,650 or maybe even 36,500 files to view. Well, um, right. Just what I want in my fuss-free uncluttered structured environment. I get rid of the Libraries / Favorites / Homeboy or whatever the heck it is and start over. QuickLaunch, which I actually came to rely on in Vista, is of course anything but apparent in Windows 7, so I have to bring it back. Windows Mail has gone to be replaced by the ludicrous nonsense of Windows Live Mail and every email account I have is splashed up on screen. Thanks, Microsoft. Another stunningly sensational idea: just the thing to help ensure personal privacy. So I had to install Vista's Windows Mail again. Viewing images through Windows Photoviewer in Vista, or whatever it was called, was always a joy because the righthand panel showed the image properties and you could rename in a second or two's right-clicking. But Microsoft decided nah, you're not having that in Windows 7, you need to go into Properties and select a tab and mess about re-naming there, so now I use Irfanview as default and F2 to achieve in seconds what I likewise achieved in seconds in Vista.

All in all, my experience of Windows 7 so far has been what experience told me to expect yet naively hoped not to find: another example of far-off Redmond telling me that actually, you really can drive much further and more smoothly if only you'll trouble yourself to learn how to use the steering wheel in the back seat (which is where we've relocated it) and the brakes in the boot (which is where we've moved them).

As to this forum: it's a gem, as are the people in it. I briefly encountered another forum where arrogance reigned supreme and anyone who wasn't wholeheartedly passionate about Windows 7 was either a moronic Luddite incapable and/or fearful of learning anything new or "should've bought a Mac if that's what you think". That kind of philosophy doesn't hold true here. We all know we're fallible. We all know that different individuals on different computers have different needs, different tastes. As Thurber put it, when speaking of mermaids, one man's mate is another man's poisson.

Oh, re security. From what I've seen so far, the OS's system is excellent. Me, I run the utterly invisible, non-intrusive Panda Cloud AV freeware in tandem with WinPatrol Pro (paid for) and Malwarebytes Pro (paid-for) and all three play happily and simultaneously together with no resource drain at all.

I'm sure I'll get on with Windows 7. Now that I've moved the steering wheel and brakes back to where I want them, not where they were placed by Microsoft diktat.

Meantime though, I seem to have done. . . something stupid and finished up with AppData where it shouldn't be. Mea Culpa!

Phil314 · 19 Apr 2014

Ztruker said:

You could give Tweaking.com's Windows repair All-In-One a try. Run just the first two fixes,

Reset Registry Permissions
Reset File Permissions

Hi Ztruker: you're a star. I mean no, I haven't yet had time to chase up those links but will do so now. Whether or not it works for me, your kindness in taking the time to mention 'em is greatly appreciated. Will advise of the outcome in due course. Seriously: many thanks again.

Britton30 · 19 Apr 2014

Phil314 said:

Britton30 said:

Maybe I missed something. Why do you want these files hidden? They will, and should, still be there whether or not you can see them.

Hi Britton30: I take the view (inapposite but unintended pun) that the reason for creating folder hiding options in the first place was to prevent system critical stuff from being visible and therefore vulnerable to accidental loss. I don't want my AppData folder to be erased through some currently unthinkable yet always possible cock-up -- a cock-up which somehow, in some way, may already have occurred, because what the heck this folder is doing in its current bonkers location (a location that perhaps, though only *perhaps*, explains why folder hiding simply isn't working) I don't know.

Hiding critical files and folders from a user is the first stage in idiot-proofing a computer. And me, shameful though it is to admit, I'm an idiot.

I understand, I once went deleting files on an old Win95 machine. Why? I'd click them and nothing happened, so I reasoned in my idiot brain, they aren't needed. The drive was only 480 MEGAbytes and I needed space.

Newer OSes do have some idiot proofing feature and won't let some critical files be deleted.

Phil314 · 19 Apr 2014

Brink said:

Hello Phil, Please post a screenshot of Windows Explorer showing AppData in it to see if it may help to ID what the issue could be. :)
If the AppData folder is not faded while showing, then type the command below in an elevated command prompt, and press Enter to set the hide attribute for the folder.

ATTRIB +H "%UserProfile%\AppData" /S /D

File and Folder - Hide or Unhide
Hope this helps, :) Shawn

Hi Shawn: oh ye gods, I do hope I'm not wasting folks's time here. Thank you so much for your interest though! Not sure if the following is of any help but it seems to demonstrate that I may not have rid myself of the irritants previously thought. .. but in the process have made a pig's ear of everything.

I have 3 ways of getting to my Documents folder, 2 of which I don't use. The first (not used) is to go to Start and then click on the computer's name:

Image 1

Which results in this:

Image 2

Alternatively, instead of clicking on the computer's name, I can instead click on 'Documents' below it. Which results in this:

Image 3

But I don't bother going the Start / Documents route. Instead, I have a QuickLaunch shortcut to my Documents folder which I simply click on to get this:

Image 4

As will be seen, the different routes actually produce slightly different results [NB: personally identifying info has been deleted from the screenshots in post processing]. As will also be seen, I've clearly not been anything like as successful as I'd thought at dumping Favorites etc et al. But whichever screen is viewed -- be it Image 2, Pussycat (computer name folder), Image 3 (Libraries/Documents) or Image 4 (Pussycat Documents, reached from my WQL shortcut) every one of 'em is showing AppData and Contacts, two folders that I really do not want visible because it renders 'em vulnerable to any further blundering on my part. Neither, however, can be hidden -- I mean, er, they're obviously still there.

This all started off with me originally confronting this:

Image 5

and a content of 39,107 items . . . As will be seen, there's no sign of AppData or Contacts or even two Desktops, though I suppose one desktop would've emerged when clicking on My Documents.

Not sure if any of the above helps . . .

Oh, bummer! The images aren't in the order uploaded. Ah well. . . I may possibly get the hang of this computing stuff by the time I'm old and grey. Oh. I am old and grey.

Brink · 19 Apr 2014

Phil,

Did using the command I posted hide your AppData folder?