Files invisible - how to see?

On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 20:32:55 -0500, Paul wrote:
His file is in AppData. His problem is being unable to navigate
into AppData, because he cannot see it in File Explorer.


Thanks for clarifying. I'm still not clear on what the problem is.

Method 1:
CD \Users\masonc (or whatever his login is)
cd appTabkeyEnter
expands to AppData for the hidden folder

Method 2:
CD \Users\masonc (or whatever his login is)
dir /a:d
shows all subdirectories including hidden ones.


--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 20:16:16 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
Stan Brown wrote:

[quoted text muted]
XP/Vista's advanced search. You now have to use "Advanced Query Syntax"
aka AQS in Windows 7.

Actually, you don't. "dir /a" is perfectly adequate to the task.

Doesn't apply to dot-files.


Indeed it does. I tried it before posting.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

"VanguardLH" wrote

| Doesn't apply to dot-files. You're talking about file attributes. I'm
| talking about dot-files which are masked out in Win7's file manager
| (just like how it also masks out special folders although you can use
| Windows Explorer to navigate into them if you know their path name).
| Dot-files are identified by their name (leading period character), not
| by an attribute assigned to the file within the file system.
|
| In Windows Explorer, select a folder and right-click to select New -
| Text file. Try to name the file as ".something". You'll get an error:

You will. But use anything other that Explorer
and you can create a dot file. Explorer then
sees it just fine. Like Stan, I keep a number of
..htaccess files. I have no trouble opening in
Notepad and saving. Explorer sees them. The
only problem is when I want to create one. I
usually just write a quick VBScript for that.

Dim FSO, OFil
Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set OFil = FSO.CreateTextFile("C:\windows\desktop\.blah", True)
Set OFil = Nothing
Set FSO = Nothing

On 02/23/2017 02:27 PM, masonc wrote:
I have a program that creates three files ".SpO2" ".txt" and ".csv and
uses the .SpO2 file. (It's a recording finger-oximeter.)

I cannot find or see these files with Excel, dos cmd, windows explorer
etc.. (the exception being its demo.spo2 demonstration file)

An ancient program I love (Multimedia explorer) shows the files but
can do nothing with them.

How do I get access to these files (other than by the originating
program), especially the .csv file?

TIA




They could possibly be hidden files or in a hidden folder within your
profile. Take the option to "show hidden" in file explorer

Stan Brown wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 20:32:55 -0500, Paul wrote:
His file is in AppData. His problem is being unable to navigate
into AppData, because he cannot see it in File Explorer.
*^^^^^^^^^^^^^*

Thanks for clarifying. I'm still not clear on what the problem is.

Method 1:
CD \Users\masonc (or whatever his login is)
cd appTabkeyEnter
expands to AppData for the hidden folder

Method 2:
CD \Users\masonc (or whatever his login is)
dir /a:d
shows all subdirectories including hidden ones.

You can see files and folders in a command shell that Windows Explorer
will mask out, especially special or system-protected files/folders.
Paul focused on Windows Explorer, not the command shell. There are a
lots of things I can do in a command shell that Windows Explorer won't
show or do.

There are a couple tricks in Windows Explorer: enter %appdata% in the
address bar (aka breadcrumb bar). That gets you to the Roaming
subfolder. If you instead want the Local subfolder then use
%localappdata%. Then click on the Appdata breadcrumb in the address bar
to move up to that parent folder to get at its other subfolders, or
click on its chevron to drop down a list of its subfolders from which
you can select. Or configure Windows Explorer to show hidden files and
folders (already mentioned by others); however, not all users want to
see hidden files/folders all the time so they end up having to toggle
off the hiding and then toggle it back on which means drilling twice
into the settings.

Thanks to ALL and Paul. Now I understand (an alternate fact).

I like programs that let me set their data location.
I never use the C:[programs partition]

All's Well and Usenet Lives !

(no "don't top post" comments, please. I'll not be here.

Bye


On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 18:58:01 -0500, Paul
wrote:

(original deleted)

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3...alstore-progra

"that your app tries to write to Program Files"

Programs are not allowed to write to C:\Program Files
on a modern OS. The OS instead, uses a redirection to the named
folder in question. If the *program* goes looking for the
files later, the OS fools the program into thinking the
files in question (could be application preferences) are
still in the Program Files folder. When in fact they are
in appdata instead.

However, the user sees the content as being in that
VirtualStore thing.

So the program in question needs to be re-written for
Win7/8/10. And follow the rules about not dumping
into the Program Files folder.

For backward compatibility, the OS has that hack so
that older programs feel "comfortable". However, it
will leave the user scratching their head occasionally.

It was never really alright to write into Program Files,
but it was tolerated. In the "malware generation", steps
have to be taken to make sure nothing bad happens.

Paul