Show File Extensions
Reviewed: Geetesh Bajaj
Date Created: August 5th 2008
Last Updated: February 23rd 2009
There are many tasks that can be performed in various versions of Microsoft Windows only if you are able to see the file extensions of file types. By default, all the new versions of Windows hide the file extensions -- but it is easy to change that default. In this article, I'll show you how you can do that for Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Show File Extensions in Windows XP
Follow these steps to show file extensions in Windows XP
- Go to My Computer and choose Tools | Folder Options, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Folder Options
- This opens the Folder Options dialog box that you can see in Figure 2 -- in this multi-tabbled dialog box, select the View tab (again, refer to Figure 2). Scroll down the list of Advanced Settings, and deselect the Hide extensions for known file types option. Click OK.
Figure 2: Hide extensions for known file types
Show File Extensions in Windows Vista
Follow these steps to show file extensions in Windows Vista:
- Go to My Computer and choose Organize | Folder and Search Options, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Folder and Search Options
- This opens the Folder Options dialog box (see Figure 4). Select the View tab -- scroll down under Advanced Settings -- and deselect the Hide extensions for known file types option. Click OK.
Figure 4: Hide extensions for known file types
