May 8, 2013

Unhide Files And Folders By Single DOS Command

UK Microsoft, Tips/Troubleshooting command prompt, file attributes, Windows command line 1 Comment

While Windows Explorer is the best file explorer when it comes to browsing files that we have saved on our hard drives, viruses make use of certain properties in Windows Explorer to disable some important functions. These viruses usually come from USB Flash drives and disable the functions like hidden files can’t be unhidden again etc.

In this situation, the good old DOS can be very helpful as we can use DOS commands to unhide files and folders. This is also beneficial for cleaning the virus from the thumb drive.

To unhide a file from command line, go to Run –> cmd.

This will open DOS command prompt. Now go to the parent folder where the file or folder resides which we want to unhide. To do this, will need to use the cd command (Change Directory). If you want to know about how to use the cd command, run the following command in command prompt:

cd /?

This will open help for the cd command. When you are in the desired folder, run the following command:

attrib -r -a -s -h *.*

Let’s discuss what this command is doing. Attrib command is used to add or remove attributes to a file. The attributes include read-only, archive, system, hidden etc. To add an attribute, we will need to use a plus (+) sign and to remove an attribute minus (-) sign is used. You can see in the above command that we are removing certain attributes.

So what are the attributes that are being removed? Here’s the explanation:

-r will remove the read-only attribute of the specified file.

-a will remove the archive attribute of the specified file.

-s will remove the system attribute of the specified file.

-h will remove the hidden attribute of the specified file.

*.* means that any file with any extension will be processed with this command. So all the files in the directory where this command is run will be unhidden and will become read-write. You will be able to edit and delete the files.

If you want to unhide all folders + subfolders and files, run the following command:

attrib *. -h -s /s /d

If you simply want to display a list of hidden files and folders and not change their attributes, run the following command:

dir/ah

I hope this will help people in troubleshooting their systems using the command line.

April 29, 2012

3 Free Portable Tools To Change Creation/Modification Date Of Files And Folders

UK List, Software file attributes 0 Comments

Whenever a file or folder is created in Windows, there are some attributes attached to it like file name, size, location, creation and modification date and time and attributes like if the file or folder is read only, hidden or ready for archiving etc. Windows does not give any way to edit these attributes except for some attributes like making a file read only or hidden etc. All these attributes can be seen under file or folder properties.

Here we are going to discuss about a few tools with which you will be able to change the creation/modification date of a file or folder. Multiple files or folders can also be selected to change the creation or modification date and time. Let’s begin with BatchTouch.

BatchTouch

BatchTouch is the easiest of programs to change the creation and modification date and time of a file or folder. BatchTouch is a portable program which can be used to modify multiple files and folders at the same time. It has a very simple interface. When you open BatchTouch, you will need to drag and drop all the files and folders that you want to change and select the new date and time on the right hand pane. This will apply to all the selected files. When you press the “Go” button, changes will be applied to all the files and folders.

Before actually applying the changes, BatchTouch will give you a warning that this operation can not be undone. You need to proceed with caution. If you are unsure of this, just make a backup of your files and folders before applying any changes.

Download BatchTouch

BulkFileChanger

BulkFileChanger is a free and portable utility from Nirsoft which can be used to change almost any file or folder attribute including creation, modification and access date and time stamps. BulkFileChanger usage is also very simple and uses a drag and drop interface. After running the program, you will need to select the files and folders which you want to change. After listing them down in BulkFileChanger, you will need to go to the actions menu and select “Change time / attributes”. You can also use F6 keyboard hotkey for the same action. You will need to press the “Do it” button in order to change the file and folder attributes.

Download BulkFileChanger

Restamper

Restamper is another open source and portable program for changing the creation and modification date and time of multiple files and folders. The user interface of Restamper is a bit confusing. First you will need to set the date and time that you want to be changed. There are three options on the Restamper window:

Created
Last modified
Last accessed

All these three attributes can be changed. After you have set these values, you will need to drag and drop the files and folders that you want to be changed on the Restamper window. The file and folder attributes will instantly be changed without further actions. One benefit of Restamper is that it automatically creates a backup of all the file and folder operations that have been done through Restamper. You can easily restore the original date and time stamps as long as you keep the backups.

[download id=”21″]