How to display a file extension in Explorer. How to show file extensions. Why do you need to change the file extension and is it possible to do this using Windows software?

How to enable showing file extensions in Windows 7, what is a file extension and what is it for? These questions need to be answered, as well as talk about changing the extension and in what cases the user may need it.

What is a file extension?

First, let's give an example of an analogy. Let's say you have a lot of different opaque jars of spices and seasonings at home. All the information is written on the jars - the name of the seasoning or spice, the brand, the manufacturer, the date of manufacture, etc. Now imagine that the name of the contents was removed from all jars. What will happen? You won't be able to use them because you don't know what is where.

You might be interested in:

The file extension is something like the name of the content. It is most often indicated by three characters (there are also extensions with four and even five characters) and is written at the end of the file name after a period. For example, you created a document in the Notepad application and saved it under the name Zametka. When saving a file, the application will automatically add an extension at the end, and the file name will be displayed as Zametka.txt. It should also be noted that the programs themselves have their own extension (exe, com, msi and others). For example, the same Notepad looks like Notepad.exe.

If the file does not have an extension, then Windows will not be able to determine the program that opens it, so it will open a window for you to select programs yourself.

What to do to show file extensions in Windows 7

The operating system by default hides extensions for all files that are unknown to it. We need to change the display function. Let's look at the whole process in Windows 7. The system will show file extensions after just a few clicks:

You need to open any folder, in the open window in the upper left corner find the “Arrange” button. When you click on it, a pop-up menu will appear, in it you need to find the line “Folder and search options” and click on it.

In the “Folder Options” window that appears, go to the “View” tab. Below there is an inscription “Advanced parameters”, and under it there is a list of these parameters. The function we need is almost at the very end of the list. Move the slider to the very bottom and find the line “Hide extensions for registered file types.” Uncheck the box and click OK.

Such simple manipulations are enough to show file extensions in Windows 7.

Why do you need to enable extensions?

Let's assume that you have found and downloaded an audio recording - a file called New_Year_music.mp3. Naturally, the music file must be opened by a player, say AIMP. But after that it didn’t start, and nothing seemed to happen at all. And then it turns out that viruses appeared on the computer.

The fact is that in fact the name of the downloaded file is New_Year_music.mp3.exe. That is, the system hid the familiar EXE extension, and you, being mistaken, launched the virus. This could have been avoided if Windows 7 showed the extensions of all files.

As we wrote above, by default Windows 7 will not show file extensions if it knows which programs to open them with. Now imagine that you need to upload a file to some site and you need to specify the full path to it. If the extension is hidden, you will not succeed.

How to change file extensions in Windows 7 and why you might need it

Changing the file extension is very easy. To do this, you need to right-click the file and select the “Rename” line in the context menu that appears.

Why might you need to change the file extension? Let's say a user needs to disguise the file “My_passwords.txt” so that no one can run it. If you just change the name - Windows, it will still be opened in notepad. But if you rename it, for example, like this: System.asd, then no one will be able to open it by accident.

There is another option: some Internet resources do not allow you to download certain types of files. You can bypass this limitation by simply changing the extension.

By default, Windows OS (WindowsXP, 7, 8, 10) hides file extensions. This is done for our own safety, so that inexperienced users do not accidentally rename a file and delete its extension. But it is the file extension that determines the program with which the file will be opened. For example, files with the mp3 extension are opened by a player: Winamp, AIMP or another (depending on which one you have installed). By removing or changing the extension, you may no longer be able to open your file. But there are times when you need to see what extension a file has. For example, you downloaded a file with music from the Internet and there seems to be nothing suspicious (let’s say music.mp3), but if you see the file extension and it differs from the standard ones (the most popular music file extensions are .WAV, .AIF, .MP3, .MID , FLAC.), for example.EXE (music.mp3.exe), then this is not music at all, but a program installer file, and who knows what kind of program it is. Perhaps it will simply help you download a musical composition, or perhaps by running it you will install a virus. In general, if you understand why the file extension is used, then I would recommend making it visible so that you always know whether the file really pretends to be who it is. In this article I will show how to see file extension in Windows 10.

Two ways to make file extensions visible:

1 Using the View tab;

2 Using Folder Options.

Make file extensions visible using the View tab.

The first method is the simplest and requires minimal effort.

Open File Explorer or the This PC desktop shortcut.

Select the "View" tab and check the box next to "File name extensions".

This way you have made the file extensions visible and can change it if you wish. If you want hide file extension, uncheck this item.

How to see file extensions using the Folder Options window.

For this method, open Explorer or any folder. Select the View tab and click the Options button.

I welcome you to the pages of my website, dear visitors!

Today we will introduce you to the concept of a file extension, why it is needed, and how to hide and display them for all file types.

So, a file extension is those characters (letters and numbers) that appear at the end of every file after the last period. As a rule, these are three alphanumeric characters, less often four.

Why is the file extension needed? It allows Windows to determine what type of file should be opened, as well as what program should open it by default (although this can be easily changed by setting extension associations and programs that should open certain extensions by default). You can read more about popular file formats (types) in. Changing the file extension incorrectly can lead to you not being able to open a particular file, and sometimes not even understanding what kind of file it is. In the course of my work, sometimes it happens that they send files with the wrong extension, and I have to guess what type of file it is, give it the correct extension, and only then work with it. To prevent this, in Windows, by default, the extensions of all files are hidden, and you will not see what extension each type of file has, that is, at the end of the file you will not see the period and three or four characters after it.

To display the extensions of all file types in Windows 7, you need to click the “Start” button in the bottom left, and select the “Control Panel” menu there.

In the window that opens, select the “Design and Personalization” section

And in the next window, in the “Folder Options” section, directly select the “Show hidden files and folders” item:

We click on this item and go directly to the display settings that interest us.

Find the item “Hide extensions for known file types” and uncheck it with a mouse click, and then click “OK”.

Now let's look again at our folder with three files whose extensions were hidden, and we see that all extensions are displayed

A Word text file has a “docx” extension (in versions of Microsoft Office 2003 and earlier, the file extension was simply “doc” or “rtf”), an Excel spreadsheet file has an “xlsx” extension, and a regular text file has a “txt” extension.

To hide file extensions, you need to do the reverse procedure by checking the “Hide extensions for registered file types” menu item.
For Windows XP, the procedure for hiding and showing files can be made much simpler. You can go the long way through the “Control Panel”, or you can open any folder on your computer (even by double-clicking on the “My Computer” shortcut on the desktop), then go to the “Tools” menu and select the “Folder Options” submenu:

And then, just like in Windows 7, in the “Hide extensions for registered file types” item, check or uncheck it depending on what we want to do (hide or display), and then click “OK”.

Important Note: turn on displaying file extensions and change these extensions only if you are absolutely sure that you will not make mistakes and a situation will not arise where due to an incorrectly changed extension.

In the Windows operating system, with default settings, extensions for registered file types are hidden. Therefore, there is often a need to find out what extension a file has.

Windows does not display registered file types; the user only sees the file name. These are most file types in the operating system.

In order to get information about what extension a given file has in Windows, you need to right-click on the file. In the context menu you need to select “Properties”. In the “Properties” window that opens, in the “General” tab, the user will see the file type.

The icons of some files in Windows can be similar to each other, so enabling the display of file types makes sense for two reasons: for convenience and for security purposes.

Many antivirus programs recommend displaying file extensions for greater security, since viruses can use icons of harmless files. The user sees a familiar file type, runs it, and this file has a completely different extension.

For example, files with the extension “.torrent” and “torrent.exe” are often found on the Internet. Externally, the icons are very similar. Therefore, after launching such a file, an inexperienced user risks downloading onto his computer something completely different from what he intended to download (movie, game, program, etc.). If file extensions were displayed on the system, it would be immediately obvious that a file with the “.exe” extension is masquerading as another file type.

You can enable the display of file extensions in the operating system using several methods: the first method is universal for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, the second method works separately in Windows 7 and separately in Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8.

How to show the extension of registered file types in Windows

Let's see how we can enable the display of file extensions in the Windows operating system in a universal way. All actions are similar in Windows 7 or Windows 8. In Windows 10, the procedure is no different, there is only a different name for the settings option.

Go to Control Panel (small icons view), select Folder Options. In Windows 10, in the “Control Panel” the setting is called “Explorer Options”, otherwise everything is the same.

In the Folder Options window, open the View tab. Uncheck the box next to “Hide extensions for known file types.” Then click on the "OK" button.

After this, file extensions of all types will be visible in the operating system Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10.

How to show file extensions in Windows 7

Another way in Windows 7 is to enter Folder Options from the Explorer window. Open Explorer, click on “Organize”, select “Folder and Search Options” from the context menu.

How to show file extensions in Windows 10 and Windows 8

In Windows 10 and Windows 8 operating systems, you can quickly access folder view settings from the Explorer window. In Explorer, go to the “View” tab, click on the “Options” button, and then on “Change folder and search options.”

In the Folder Options window, uncheck the box next to Hide extensions for known file types. To confirm the setting change, click on the “OK” button.

Now all files in Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 will have a visible file extension.

Conclusions of the article

The default settings in Windows hide extensions for registered file types. The user can enable the display of file extensions in the Windows operating system in several ways.

Hello! I want to say right away that this article is more aimed at users who are just starting to master the computer, but for everyone else, it can also be useful. After writing the instructions, I want to talk about one very important point in the “Folder Options”.

I think you have often heard words or terms such as: .doc, .docx, .txt, .rar. All this means the format of various files. You may also have heard such a name as: Displays the extension for registered file types. Initially, displaying (displaying) file types in Windows is disabled. But, as practice shows, displaying file extensions may be necessary at any time.

Where might this be needed? The first example that comes to my mind is where a mandatory setting item was to enable file format display. This is quite easy to do.

How to enable display of file extensions in Windows 7, 8, XP

As I said at the beginning of the article, to configure, first of all you need to go to “Folder Options”, where we previously went to enable the display of hidden files. And there we open “ Start» –> « Control Panel» –> « Folders settings».

Opening " Folders settings", go to the tab " View" and here, having gone down to the bottom of the list of "Additional parameters", you should see the item " Hide extension for registered folder options" In order for us to see the extensions of our files, uncheck the box next to this item and save the settings by clicking on the “ Apply».

Here is an example file of what the “Before” and “After” settings should look like. If file format display is disabled, then only the file name will be visible, as shown in the option on the left. Otherwise, if you have opened access to show the file type, then its format will appear next to the name, you can see this on the right. In my case .txt- this is my file extension.

In order to return everything to the way it was, you need to follow the same instructions, but this time check the box rather than remove and save. If you decide to rename a file, be careful, you only need to delete the file name, but leave the extension itself (Example: file name (remove) .txt (leave )). That's all. Don't forget to subscribe to updates via E-mail and RSS. Good luck!

Enable display of file extensions