SpecialFoldersView Displays Hidden Windows Folder Locations
Windows only: Tiny portable utility SpecialFoldersView displays a list of all of the built-in hidden Windows folders—giving you quick and easy access without having to remember the path.
Using the application is just as simple as the rest of the excellent NirSoft utilities—just launch the application and you’ll be presented with a list of special folders. You can double-click or use the F2 key to open the folder in an explorer window, or you can use the right-click menu or F7 key to create a shortcut to that folder on your desktop—very useful for doing some deep system analysis that requires navigating to these hidden folders.
SpecialFoldersView is a free download for Windows only. For more great utilities, check out how to edit your right-click menu with ShellExView, download attachments from Outlook with OutlookAttachView, or look through our list of top 10 tiny & awesome Windows utilities.
SpecialFoldersView [via gHacks]
- Next Post: Cucku Backup Stashes Your Files With Friends »
- « Previous Post: Undo Closed Window Coming In Firefox 3.5
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@Jango17: Odd my corporate company SEP (Symantec Endpoint Protection) said it was clean.
(Yes I know SEP sucks...)
@RoFLKOPTr:
Toggle Hidden Folders on and off
Or maybe this little vbs-script, mainly for Rocket Dock, but works perfectly good from anywhere on the disk.
[rocketdock.com]
Or as RoFLKOPTr wrote, just do it the basic way :)
Jango17
Kaspersky Internet Security says virus!!!
or as kasp would put it,;
not-a-virus2009-04-27
not-a-virus:PSWTool.Win32.NetPass.hd
C:\Users\*********\AppData\Local\Temp\Rar$EX00.574\SpecialFoldersView.exe
Not good at all, makes whole computer bad.
Do not download ?
Jango17
Umm......
Organize > Folder & Search Options > View > Show Hidden Files & Folders
That's for Win7, but it's approximately the same in Vista and WinXP.
RoFLKOPTr
A simple alternative would be to create a Library for these folder locations, no additional software needed.
SakinaRagnarok
No problem with Avast. And I've never had a problem with anything from Nirsoft. Always clean and always work as advertised.
@Jango17: /facepalm
If a program is reported as "not-a-virus", then it isn't a virus. It matches Kaspersky's heuristics algorithms as a potentially hazardous program (due to its integration into Explorer), so it alerts you, but it finds the program in their database as "not-a-virus:*" which is so that you know it's not harmful.
RoFLKOPTr
VirusTotal's results:
[www.virustotal.com]
Can anyone here determine whether the following constitutes an acceptable level of risk or not?
( 9 imports )
> KERNEL32.DLL: LoadLibraryA, GetProcAddress, VirtualProtect, VirtualAlloc, VirtualFree, ExitProcess
> ADVAPI32.dll: RegCloseKey
> COMCTL32.dll: -
> comdlg32.dll: FindTextW
> GDI32.dll: SetBkMode
> msvcrt.dll: exit
> ole32.dll: CoInitialize
> SHELL32.dll: ShellExecuteW
> USER32.dll: GetDC
@RoFLKOPTr: I am led to believe that the point of this article has quite escaped you. The application's purpose is not to 'un-hide' hidden and system files and folders, but instead to give one easy access to a series of folders commonly refered to as 'special' folders under the Windows environment.
For most users the location of some or most of these folders is obscure to say the least. Think of it as an extension of the convenience of having 'My Documents' listed on one's Start Menu or Desktop (as opposed to repeatedly navigating to C:\Users\\Documents\).
I just have two *.vbs scripts that I execute with launchy to show/hide hidden folders&files , this method is easy for me because I use IE Tab,
Set sh = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
theKey = "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Hidden"
setHidden = sh.RegRead(theKey)
setHidden = 0 >>>>>>>>>>> turn this into a 1 to show
sh.RegWrite theKey,setHidden,"REG_DWORD"
Set sh = Nothing
metalmarious
No problem with NOD32 Antivirus 4 either...
robio376
ZoneAlarm Internet Security blocked link and says is spy site [www.nirsoft.net]
ZoneAlarm Internet Security blocked link and says is spy site http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/special_folders_view.html
SanjulaNubulate
Hello,
SpecialFoldersView.exe - not-a-virus:PSWTool.Win32.NetPass.hd
New potentially risk software was found in this file. It's detection will be included in the next update. Thank you for your help.
Regards, Ostroverkhov Vladimir
Virus Analyst, Kaspersky Lab.
hm... What about avast?
Jango17
@kazemizuhi: Thanks for injecting some adult smarts into these mostly brain-dead LH comments. I swear, the age and iq demographic for Lifehacker is dropping. The teens and the preteens and the shut-in geek wannabes are all too common on LH threads lately. I look to Lifehacker for info and insights and find a lot of Digg-style sewage instead.
paintbox
@Jango17: Does that mean it will be detected as "not a virus" or what?
I thought this was going to show the Vista "virtualized" versions of Program Files, etc., but I guess those are not special enough. (They're under C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore) I keep creating shortcuts for those, then I keep deleting them. ;)
@metalmarious: You may find this of interest:
[tinyurl.com]