As an IT administrator, you often have to deal with a variety of issues related to your organization’s computers, networks, and software. One of these issues is how to hide desktop.ini files without also hiding other hidden files and folders.
Desktop.ini files are hidden system files that are used by the Windows operating system to store information about the appearance and settings of a folder. Generally, these files are not meant to be seen, as they are used by the system and not by the user. However, some users may be curious as to what these files are and how they can be hidden.
The simplest way to hide desktop.ini files is to open the File Explorer and select the View tab. Under the View tab, select the “Hidden items” checkbox to enable the display of hidden files and folders. Once enabled, you will be able to view any desktop.ini files that are present on your computer, but they will be hidden from most users.
If you need to hide these files from all users, you can use the Windows registry editor. To do this, open the registry editor by typing “regedit” in the Start menu and press enter. Once inside the registry editor, navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\Advanced key. Here, you will need to create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value named “ShowSuperHidden” and set it to 0. This will prevent the display of any hidden files or folders in File Explorer.
Finally, if you need to hide desktop.ini files from just certain users, you can use an access control list (ACL). To do this, open the File Explorer and right-click on the folder containing the desktop.ini file. Select the “Properties” option, then click the “Security” tab. Here, you can add or remove individual users from the list and grant them different levels of access to the folder.
In summary, hiding desktop.ini files without hiding other hidden files and folders can be done using the File Explorer, the registry editor, or an ACL. Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages, so be sure to choose the one that fits your organization’s needs the best. By following the steps outlined above, you can effectively hide desktop.ini files without exposing any other hidden files and folders to your users.
