Help Grandma Toggle Hidden Files and Extensions

Recently, while helping some technophobic friends over the phone, I realized how useful a simple app to toggle whether to show hidden files and file extensions could be. To most of my friends, I’d just tell them to look under folder options, but if they can’t find that to begin with (and Vista/Win7 doesn’t make it easier by moving it to a different place than XP), then it’s much easier to just email them this app that will make the necessary changes for them by changing the registry settings directly.

In writing this app, I’ve tried to be as user-friendly as possible. On running, it will tell the user what their current settings are, and whether they want to change them. All the user needs to do is click Yes or No. This is also why I like this solution instead of using registry tweaks, because registry tweaks don’t tell you your settings.

Note: I know that registry tweaking is a little scary, but I promise that this app is so simple that it’s virtually impossible to run into problems. It’s not like a registry cleaner or tweaker where a user can accidentally mess up their registry and cause some serious problems. All it does is toggle 2 well documented functions.

Download

ToggleHiddenFilesandExtensions.exe (program)
ToggleHiddenFilesandExtensions.ahk (source code)