Can I hide files starting with .

Mr. Flibble

I'm using windows on a mac and a lot of mac system files start with a full stop. These files get hidden in an OS X enviornment. Is there a way I can get windows to hide these files too?

Capt'n Midnight

try turining on the system attribute, right click and into file properties or
Attrib .filename +s

Mr. Flibble

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

try turining on the system attribute, right click and into file properties or
Attrib .filename +s

Could you give me brief instructions on how do that?

Krusty_Clown

What Capt'n is suggesting, is that for a particular file, you right click the file (not sure how you right-click with a one button mouse!), and from the [attributes] section of the properties page, ensure that [Hidden] is checked. You can also apply this to a directory, include the actual directory and the files contained within the directory.

Now here's the thing: The files and folders with the hidden attribute will only appear hidden to users who have the following option selected in their explorer folder options:
[Tools][Folder Options][Tab:View][Do not show hidden files and folders]
Otherwise, they can see files and folders even if they have the hidden attribute.. If you want these to be hidden to any user regardless, you'll have to use a third-party application, that messes around with how the OS operates.

By the way, to get to properties with only a single button mouse, you can select [Properties] from Explorer's file menu (while you have an object selected).

Hope this helps.

Mr. Flibble

You gotta shift yourself to the left to right-click with one button.

What Cap' M is describing will only hide the particular folder/file that I tell it to hide, right?

I'm looking for a method to hide all files that begin with . automatically. There are thousands of them spread about and I can't go round doing them all in seperatly, expecially with the said right-click problem.

Krusty_Clown

If you perform a search for .* you can find all of the files that begin with a full-stop, followed by a sequence orf characters.

When the search is completed, multi-select the files, go to [File] [Properties] and turn on the hidden attribute. Should do the trick..

Just make sure that the .* search has selected the right selection of files.. Some search engines/tools may locate everything with a . and a sequence of characters, which would be the equivalent of all files in the system.

Mr. Flibble

Cheers. I'll give it a shot tonight. I should probably search google when I've got the energy, for a way which will make new . files automatically be hidden. I'm sure everyone using boot camp would like to do the same.

Capt'n Midnight

Create a text file and rename it first to make sure it works before you mess with system files. I haven't tried this.

In windows XP -
start
run
cmd
to get the command pompt C:\documents and settings\blah blah blah>_
then type
CD \
attrib .* +s /s
not sure what effect this will have on folders

http://www.macwindows.com is a must see for general queries
http://www.macwindows.com/winintelmac.html

Mr. Flibble

I tried to search for all the .files and then tried to set them to hidde, but for some reason the Hidden option is greyed out.

I also tried typing attrib a.txt +s /s , where s.txt is some text file. The command prompt just crashes/looped. It didn't seem to do anything to a.txt.

Any ideas on either?

aidan_walsh

I tried to search for all the .files and then tried to set them to hidde, but for some reason the Hidden option is greyed out.

Depending on where the file is, and whether you have permission to change its attributes, one file that you are not able to alter will block the mass settings change.