Make Your Windows Show File Extensions

This can also help in situations where you download what you think is a PDF file, and the real extension is .pdf.exe, which means you downloaded an executable program file, which is most likely a virus. So by showing file extensions you can verify that you are really dealing with a .pdf file. (Note that PDF files often have their own security problems)

File Extensions:

A file extension, or file name extension, is the letters immediately shown after the last period in a file name. For example, the file extension.txt has an extension of .txt. This extension allows the operating system to know what type of file it is and what program to run when you double-click on it. There are no particular rules regarding how an extension should be formatted other than it must begin with a period and have at least one character after it.

For the most part, file extensions consist of three characters, which are typically letters or digits, that textually represent the type of file it is. Some examples of file extensions include .txt, .mp3, .jpg, and .gz, which represent text files, mp3 files, jpeg image files, and files compressed with the gzip program. As you can see, the actual extension name gives clues as to the type of file it is.

By default, Windows hides these extensions to prevent users from tampering with the file names and rendering them useless. This is handy for people who aren’t very familiar with computers, but sometimes you need to see what they are.

Making Windows Show File Extensions:

There are two main methods you can use for toggling the “Show File Extensions” feature in Windows. The first will require you to go through the control panel, while the second only requires that you open an Explorer window.

Using Control Panel:

Begin by opening the control panel, and then click on “Appearance and Personalization”.

Next, you will need to click on the “Folder Options” section.

Under the “View” tab, in the “Advanced settings” box, deselect the “Hide extensions for known file types” option.

Finaly, click “Apply” then “OK” to complete the process. Now you will see the file extensions of every file shown at the end of their names as shown in the image below.

Using an Explorer Window:

First, you will need to open up ay explorer window. For this example, we will use the “Documents” folder. Simply press the “Alt” button to being up the classic menu bar on the top of the window, then select the “Tools” dropdown menu, and click on “Folder Options”.

Now just untick the “Hide extensions for known file types” option from the “View” tab, as shown in the last method.

If you ever need to hide the extensions of your files, simply go through the same procedure and ensure that the “Hide extensions for known file types” option has a checkmark.