Windows 8 How do you display your computers hidden files and folders in Windows 8?

terryleemartin · Nov 28, 2012

I have a 127gb solid state hard drive. I only use it to run my programs. All saved files are sent to other internal hard drives. I just happened to notice today that I only had 7gb of space left on my C drive. I did a quick check and found that I only have 44gb of programs and files that appear. Therefore there are about 86gb of files somewhere that I can't see. I'd like to know what is filling up my hard drive. I need to know how to reveal those hidden files and folders. Can someone tell me how to do that?

Medico · Nov 28, 2012

CP, Folder options, View, Uncheck Hide protected System Files. This will display all files on your HD.

Try to clean up the system a little. Programs, Administrative Tools, Disk Cleanup will help. You can actually set this to do a more thorough cleanup. I actually have a batch file I run to do this cleanup:

@Echo off
cls
cleanmgr /sageset:1000
del /F /S /Q "%systemroot%\temp\*.*"

del /F /S /Q "C:\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Temporary Internet...

Medico · Nov 28, 2012

CP, Folder options, View, Uncheck Hide protected System Files. This will display all files on your HD.

Try to clean up the system a little. Programs, Administrative Tools, Disk Cleanup will help. You can actually set this to do a more thorough cleanup. I actually have a batch file I run to do this cleanup:

@Echo off
cls
cleanmgr /sageset:1000
del /F /S /Q "%systemroot%\temp\*.*"

del /F /S /Q "C:\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5\*.*"

del /F /S /Q "C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Temp\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:\Temp\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\Content.IE5\*.*
del /F /S /Q "C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History\*.*

::Rem: No need to duplicate the following section for each registered User
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%\Cookies\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%\recent\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%\Local Settings\cookies\*.*"

del /F /S /Q "%homepath%\Local Settings\History\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%\Local Settings\Temp\*.*"
del /F /S /Q "%homepath%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\*.*"

del /F /S /Q "C:\$Recycle.Bin.Bin\*.*"

del /F /S /Q "C:\Recycled\*.*"

cleanmgr /sagerun:1000

Paste this into Notepad then save as Cleanup.bat to your desktop.

Note the line near the top cleanmgr /sageset:1000. This sets the Disk Cleanup routine to run on steroids. Check all the options.

If no files are in the chosen paths, No files found will be displayed.

terryleemartin · Nov 29, 2012

Hi Medicted60
Thank you for taking the time that you did to provide all this information. I removed a lot from my hard drive with your suggestions. There were a lot of things that it didn't remove however, and that's because of the computer my son and I built. I am very fortunate to have a son who is a computer Engineer for Microsoft. There are many things about operating certain software and ways to do thing on the computer where I have an advantage over him, because that is not his specialty. He was able to help with this one though. I'm not qualified to give a full explanation, but I now understand part of what was going on. I have a 3.5ghz quad core machine with dual video cards and 32gb of RAM. As a result of all that RAM the computer took up a lot of space to provide an adequate page file for the machine. With that much RAM, I don't really need a page file and we got rid of it freeing up a lot of space. We actually freed up a total of 50 gb with your help and my sons, and solved a couple other problems along the way. Thanks very much for all the help. It is appreciated.

davehc · Nov 29, 2012

You are aware of the built in "Cleanmgr". This does most of the work, and, hopefully, fairly safely as it is designed for the OS. But better is Ccleaner. You will read reports that it causes errors, etc. It is from a company called Piriform, (Link Removed have been around for many years. I have used it since XP, without mishaps. It can be optimised, so that it will retain your passwords or, if you wish, cookies.

This is what it looks like after a scan the computer I am using now, for example. If I selected detailed view, you would see all the items in the .bat file above.plus a few more. The program is also able to clean up your registry, but I prefer to do this manually or, for the most part, leave it alone.

Medico · Nov 29, 2012

I also use CCleaner, but with one caveat. I only use the registry cleaner after I uninstall an app to look for leftover stuff. The regular cleaner portion, generally with default settings, does a good job, but the registry setting can cause problems if you are not careful in what you remove.

50 Gb is a great amount of cleaned space, esp. on a 128 Gb SSD. Yes, the system does use the amount of installed Ram to set the Pagefile size. With that much Ram, I would think unless you have a lot of extensive multi-tasking going on your PC would not ever use the virtual memory. 32 Gb of Ram is HUGE!

Windows 8 How do you display your computers hidden files and folders in Windows 8?

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