Get a complete listing of your files, including hidden files

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Get a complete listing of your files, including hidden files

The DOS Dir command lets you list the files in a directory along with their file size, creation date and time. At the end of the listing, it gives you the number of bytes used by the files. If you have ever added up the bytes listed for the files and compared it to the total bytes used, you may have noticed that there can be a fairly large discrepancy. This may be caused by the fact that there are hidden files on the disk.

DOS has files that are needed for the computer to function properly, and if they weren't hidden, they may be deleted by accident. In addition, some other programs may also create hidden files for a similar purpose.

DOS hides files by attaching to them a hidden attribute. This keeps a file from being listed in a file listing. In addition, you are not able to delete the file when you use bulk erase commands (i.e., del *.* in DOS).

There is an easy way to get a complete listing of ALL files on your disk, along with a report on their status as hidden files.

1. First exit to the DOS prompt and change to the directory you want to check.

2. Now type attrib and press (ENTER). DOS will list all the files in the directory along with each file's attributes. If you see an H next to a file, that means that file is a hidden file.

If you are like me, you have many files in each directory and cant see all the files at one time. Type attrib > followed by the path and filename, to print the listing of the files to an ASCII file so you can view them in MEMO. For example to view the attributes of all the files in the C:\_DAT directory, exit to the DOS prompt and type attrib c:\_dat\*.* > c:\_dat\ attrib .doc . Then start System Manager, go to Memo and load the file C:\_DAT\ ATTRIB .DOC). This file has a listing of all the files in the c:\_dat sub directory with the file attributes.

Tom Gibson

HP Palmtop Paper

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