How do I access hidden & system folders/files in Windows 7?

Asked by ETpro (34605

) October 4th, 2011

I suffered a corrupted boot sector on my old XP hard drive. I have a brand new Terabyte C: drive in place and Windows 7 Ultimate installed.

Now the process of recovering system settings, bookmarks, favorites, etc from the old drive, which is still readable as a E: drive now. I found where Firefix stores its user settings in Documents and Settings/Mozilla Firefox. I can copy the file there. But I cannot access Users/James/ on the new Windows 7 drive. It says access denied even if I am logged in as Admin. Right clicking the folder doesn’t seem to offer any way to change that access. How do I let myself in to hidden and system files on my own computer?

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6 Answers

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In Explorer (Windows key + E), you should be able to access Folder Options in the menu at the top… there will be a series of radio button choices for different things, and one of them should be Show hidden folders, or some such. I don’t have Windows 7 on the laptop I’m working on now, but I recall it is very similar across Windows operating systems.

dappled_leaves (15898

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@tech24u That info is highly suspect. desktop.ini is not a virus. It’s a Windows file that needs to be on the system. Suggesting deleting it it dangerous advice.

@dappled_leaves Thanks. Will look into it. Humm. I thought so. It’s already set to show hidden and system files. Looks like I need to appeal to a higher power.

ETpro (34605

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