Solved Can't Hide Certain Folders in User Account Directory

[FrozenInferno]

Ones like Contacts, Downloads, Favourites, Links, etc...

Anyone know how to do it?

 

[Brink]

Hello FrozenInferno,

Are you trying to hide them from your C:\Users\(user-name) folder location?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/56005-file-folder-hide-unhide.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[FrozenInferno]

Yea, but the problem is, although it becomes hidden from that location, it's still visible in the shortcut location (the one accessed from the start menu or the library pane).

 

[Brink]

You actually have two separate Documents folders that you are dealing with in this case.

One is at the C:\Users\(user-name)\My Documents location that you just set to be hidden. This is is your user account's My Documents folder.

The other one is located at C:\Users\Public\Public Documents. This one is a public folder that is shared between all user accounts on the computer, and on a network if allowed.

Both of these folder locations are included in the Documents library. When you click on the Documents button in the Start Menu, it also opens to the library location by default. This is why you will still see Documents since you are actually looking at shortcuts to the library location instead of the user folder location that you set to be hidden.

You can change the Start Menu button to open the user folder location instead to possibly solve that one, but you'll always have a Documents library unless you delete it.

 

[FrozenInferno]

I think you misunderstand. What I'm trying to do is hide certain folders within my user directory. Now when I access the directory through My Computer (going into My Computer -> C: -> Users -> etc.), I'm able to hide them from that location, but when I access the user directory through either the start menu or desktop/navigational pane, they're still visible.

 

[Brink]

Would you post screenshots of these locations with them highlighted so I can do some testing?

 

[FrozenInferno]

Pretty much any of those folders.

 

[hjonesMCT]

This might be silly, but do you have "Show hidden folders" selected in Folder and Search Options?

 

[hjonesMCT]

Just did some testing and I think I fixed it. It's because those folders are typically shared within a Homegroup. I've attached screenshots of my settings--even with "Don't show hidden files and folders" selected. Notice in my User folder it still shows everything.

To fix it, after I hid the folder, I right-clicked on it, selected "Share With" and selected "Nobody". It disappeared from my User folder (hidden).

Let me know if that works.

 

[FrozenInferno]

I don't seem to have a "Share With" option in my context menu.

I'm pretty sure I disabled Homegroups a while ago though, so maybe that's why?

 

[hjonesMCT]

Well, what it did effectively is un-share it using the Basic Sharing option. Can you check under Properties > Sharing tab and see if it's a shared folder? Try to un-share it. That should do the trick.

 

[Brink]

Pretty much any of those folders.

It appears that it doesn't hide them the user folder location when you click open the "Personal folder" button in the Start Menu when you hide a user folder at the C:\Users\(user-name) folder for some reason.

It looks like you may need to use the Customize Start Menu settings to remove the whole "personal folder", and just add the individual user folders you still want displayed instead for now.

 

[FrozenInferno]

Well, what it did effectively is un-share it using the Basic Sharing option. Can you check under Properties > Sharing tab and see if it's a shared folder? Try to un-share it. That should do the trick.

Nope, not a shared folder. Just to be clear, you're able to hide folders like Contacts, My Pictures, My Videos, etc. from your user directory even when accessed from the start menu/desktop?

Pretty much any of those folders.

It appears that it doesn't hide them the user folder location when you click open the "Personal folder" button in the Start Menu when you hide a user folder at the C:\Users\(user-name) folder for some reason.

It looks like you may need to use the Customize Start Menu settings to remove the whole "personal folder", and just add the individual user folders you still want displayed instead for now.

I don't understand, why would I want to remove the personal folder?

 

[Brink]

I don't understand, why would I want to remove the personal folder?

Well, I figured that if you didn't want to see them there, you could remove it and just add the individual user folder buttons (Music, My Documents, etc....) that you want in the Customize Start Menu settings.

 

[FrozenInferno]

Oh, I see. I mainly use the start menu anyway to get to most of my folders, so it's not that annoying, I'm just really curious as to why they can't be hidden.

 

[Brink]

I'm not certain why either, but it may have something to do with it being a symbolic link. Just a guess though.

 

[FrozenInferno]

Nvm, all I had to do was reload explorer (or log in and out) after setting the attributes.

 

[Brink]

Well, that is great news indeed. Thank you for posting back with your results and solution.