Does anybody 'Hide extensions for known file types'?
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Turning that "feature" off is one of the first things I do on any Windows install. I find it incredibly irritating having to rely in an icon in explorer to determine the file type. I don't know who in their right mind decided "Let's hide file extensions, that seems a great idea!".
.-. |o,o| ,| \_\\=/\_ .-""-. ||/\_/\_\\\_\\ /\[\] \_ \_\\ |\_/|(\_)|\\\\ \_|\_o\_LII|\_ \\.\_./// / | ==== | \\ |\\\_/|"\` |\_| ==== |\_| |\_|\_| ||" || || |-|-| ||LI o || |\_|\_| ||'----'|| /\_/ \\\_\\ /\_\_| |\_\_\\Yes, me too. It's a totally unnecessary feature, and making it the DEFAULT is insane. It's hardest on beginners that REALLY need the extensions to make sense of what's happening, and THESE are the people who don't have a clue how to change it (or even that it needs to be changed.) From the people who brought you COM and Vista and unmeasurable .NET text.
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There are few things as dull as installing Windows. I'm in the update stage and having downloaded the updates, it's installing them - 141 of them. That's just Windows, once I get Office on there and Visual Studio there'll be all the service packs as it morphs from 'Windows' to 'Microsoft' update. In my set-up routine I always go into file explorer and make all the file extensions show up as I'm simply lost without them. Also hidden files, but this time I'm going to leave system files hidden. So question - does anybody hide file extensions or does everybody turn them back on?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
Years back a former girlfriend came back from work mightily irritated with her boss and co-workers. She was annoyed that they had gotten angry with her. All she had done was to clean up the mess in their network folders. When I asked what happened, she told me all she had done was to go through all their folders and rename each file to get rid of the incomprehensible bit at the end of each file name. She had noticed that 'it' came up with a strange warning. But that was incomprehensible as well so she didn't pay any heed! She really thought it very unfair that everybody had gotten so upset with her. A little real story as an example where hidden file extensions would have been a good thing. (PS: She was very good looking!)
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There are few things as dull as installing Windows. I'm in the update stage and having downloaded the updates, it's installing them - 141 of them. That's just Windows, once I get Office on there and Visual Studio there'll be all the service packs as it morphs from 'Windows' to 'Microsoft' update. In my set-up routine I always go into file explorer and make all the file extensions show up as I'm simply lost without them. Also hidden files, but this time I'm going to leave system files hidden. So question - does anybody hide file extensions or does everybody turn them back on?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
I usually turn it on. As a developer, I sometimes need to know the exact extension of the file, e.g. windows display .xls and .xlsx exactly the same when this feature is turn off but it treats two types of file differently.
petersgyoung
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Extensions are meant for the OS only. Average user doesn't need to bother with them. Its a rather stupid way of detecting the file type. While the geeks want to see it, average consumer doesn't. No need to guess who's the majority here, do we?
If you receive a file named "playme.exe" and has a Windows Media Player icon, you do need to know the extension. Even if you are a lay person. Or else you cannot even be warned. There is no excuse for not knowing what you're doing.
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Turning that "feature" off is one of the first things I do on any Windows install. I find it incredibly irritating having to rely in an icon in explorer to determine the file type. I don't know who in their right mind decided "Let's hide file extensions, that seems a great idea!".
.-. |o,o| ,| \_\\=/\_ .-""-. ||/\_/\_\\\_\\ /\[\] \_ \_\\ |\_/|(\_)|\\\\ \_|\_o\_LII|\_ \\.\_./// / | ==== | \\ |\\\_/|"\` |\_| ==== |\_| |\_|\_| ||" || || |-|-| ||LI o || |\_|\_| ||'----'|| /\_/ \\\_\\ /\_\_| |\_\_\\Indeed. Not only is it more difficult to determine the type based on an icon, it can also be ambiguous. E. g. you could store your template function implementations in foo.hpp and your 'normal' header in foo.h, but Explorer would show both with the same name and icon!
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In the "good old days", Office applications had names like "Word", "Excel", "Powerpoint". So when in the Start menu, you could use the keyboard to select them by just typing the first letter. Then (from Office 2003 or thereabouts) they changed the app names to "Microsoft Office Access", "Microsoft Office Excel" etc, so making single-letter selection from the start menu impossible. Don't know what bright spark came up with that "improvement" but they should have lost their job... or at least their promotion. Bet they didn't, though. If I'm using a system with Office pre-installed the next thing I do after "fixing" the hidden file extensions is to "correct" the names in the start menu so that they're useable. :-(
DerekTP123 wrote:
Don't know what bright spark came up with that "improvement"
Don't know what bright spark idiotic marketing douche-bag came up with that "improvement". FTFY
Software Zen:
delete this; -
There are few things as dull as installing Windows. I'm in the update stage and having downloaded the updates, it's installing them - 141 of them. That's just Windows, once I get Office on there and Visual Studio there'll be all the service packs as it morphs from 'Windows' to 'Microsoft' update. In my set-up routine I always go into file explorer and make all the file extensions show up as I'm simply lost without them. Also hidden files, but this time I'm going to leave system files hidden. So question - does anybody hide file extensions or does everybody turn them back on?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
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You don't need to; the average lay person uses Spreadsheets, Documents and email. They only ever have one file type that they are interested in so the issue never arises. Geeks and nerds like us are the only people who care about all these differences.
Use the best guess
The issue that comes up is these average lay persons you speak of, only being aware of "Spreadsheets, Documents and email" will not understand why the Spreadsheet they copied from work doesn't work at home. And almost any attempt to troubleshoot with them may end up a very difficult task.
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Quote:
I don't know who in their right mind decided "Let's hide file extensions, that seems a great idea!".
This statement just proves that you are a "developer" and not a "user". Microsoft figures there are many more "users" than "developers" and the "developers" can figure it out or develop their own script to change it. It should be a compliment to you that Microsoft thinks you are smart enough to fix what bugs you.
Brent
Unfortunately with hidden extensions, many average users in the past didn't realize they were clicking on a file something like MusicFile.mp3.vbs or MusicFile.mp3.exe, was a bigger problem back in KaZaa and Limewire days, but it's still there.
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The issue that comes up is these average lay persons you speak of, only being aware of "Spreadsheets, Documents and email" will not understand why the Spreadsheet they copied from work doesn't work at home. And almost any attempt to troubleshoot with them may end up a very difficult task.
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There are few things as dull as installing Windows. I'm in the update stage and having downloaded the updates, it's installing them - 141 of them. That's just Windows, once I get Office on there and Visual Studio there'll be all the service packs as it morphs from 'Windows' to 'Microsoft' update. In my set-up routine I always go into file explorer and make all the file extensions show up as I'm simply lost without them. Also hidden files, but this time I'm going to leave system files hidden. So question - does anybody hide file extensions or does everybody turn them back on?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
All the graddies I work with seem to. They seem to know what the damn icons mean and seem very amused when I can't figure out which one of the files is the C++ solution and which is the project, exe or pdb.
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There are few things as dull as installing Windows. I'm in the update stage and having downloaded the updates, it's installing them - 141 of them. That's just Windows, once I get Office on there and Visual Studio there'll be all the service packs as it morphs from 'Windows' to 'Microsoft' update. In my set-up routine I always go into file explorer and make all the file extensions show up as I'm simply lost without them. Also hidden files, but this time I'm going to leave system files hidden. So question - does anybody hide file extensions or does everybody turn them back on?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
This "feature" was most likely created for end users. Not the generic end user, mind you, the type of end user that prompted them to hide which files were being copied in Windows 8, since the "users" cancelled the copying, since they got "scared" due to the file names flashing past (Akin to old movie deletions) Take something simple, like "notepad.exe" Whilst a person with an inch of computing knowledge would see that as "notepad" "dot" "exe", someone without such knowledge would see it as "notepaddotexe" which would be akin to someone WITH knowledge seeing something like "notepad&@&#@&" (Generally a virus created file) Unfortunately MS have to design their OS's for everyone - From the geek that's been using PC's for the past 10 years, to the person that thinks their sink is threatening to kill them...
-= Reelix =-
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Kyudos wrote:
it is just part of the file name.
I was talking about people who have no real understanding of how filenames are structured, or why. They just understand documents and folders.
Use the best guess
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Turning that "feature" off is one of the first things I do on any Windows install. I find it incredibly irritating having to rely in an icon in explorer to determine the file type. I don't know who in their right mind decided "Let's hide file extensions, that seems a great idea!".
.-. |o,o| ,| \_\\=/\_ .-""-. ||/\_/\_\\\_\\ /\[\] \_ \_\\ |\_/|(\_)|\\\\ \_|\_o\_LII|\_ \\.\_./// / | ==== | \\ |\\\_/|"\` |\_| ==== |\_| |\_|\_| ||" || || |-|-| ||LI o || |\_|\_| ||'----'|| /\_/ \\\_\\ /\_\_| |\_\_\\ -
And when there are several files with the same name (minus the extension) with different (or maybe the same) icons (which may not mean anything to the user).. which should be opened/run?
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Like most of the respondents to my comments you have totally missed the point I was making.
Use the best guess
How's that? My point was that you can't hide important information from even novice users and expect better results. Most of those users won't know the difference, but when it matters it really matters. How can anyone provide rational support for users if all they have to go on is "click on the icon that looks like [try to describe an image]", especially in cases were applications just love to remap file type associations (and their icons) when installed. If a user doesn't know what those extensions mean, then fine.. but if you never allow them to make an informed decision (by providing the information naturally available), then supporting those users will always be more effort than it should be.
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How's that? My point was that you can't hide important information from even novice users and expect better results. Most of those users won't know the difference, but when it matters it really matters. How can anyone provide rational support for users if all they have to go on is "click on the icon that looks like [try to describe an image]", especially in cases were applications just love to remap file type associations (and their icons) when installed. If a user doesn't know what those extensions mean, then fine.. but if you never allow them to make an informed decision (by providing the information naturally available), then supporting those users will always be more effort than it should be.
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I was talking about my actual experiences rather than what might happen given certain circumstances. As I said before you (along with a few others) seem to have missed that point.
Use the best guess
And I was talking about my _actual_ experiences also. I had a situation of a directory with many specification files of the same base name and different extensions (the extension determined the version for the spec). It was hard to tell the not-so-technically-inclined user which file to open as it was hard for me to even figure it out. And since several versions had been previously been opened/associated with a text editor, they all had the same (meaningless) icon. I've also seen examples of "released" content (e.g. software or data) that have the same documentation in multiple formats (e.g. .txt, .doc, .rtf, .pdf, .html), all with the same base name in the same directory. So which would give the novice user the best experience and how can they know which one to pick (why view a simple text file with ascii art when they could open a PDF with actual pictures/charts). I thought the point of replying was to provide context from a variety of others' experiences that may differ from just one person's experience. So wouldn't this be hitting the point?
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There are few things as dull as installing Windows. I'm in the update stage and having downloaded the updates, it's installing them - 141 of them. That's just Windows, once I get Office on there and Visual Studio there'll be all the service packs as it morphs from 'Windows' to 'Microsoft' update. In my set-up routine I always go into file explorer and make all the file extensions show up as I'm simply lost without them. Also hidden files, but this time I'm going to leave system files hidden. So question - does anybody hide file extensions or does everybody turn them back on?
Regards, Rob Philpott.
In the discussion of this topic it seems that some have strong reasons to want keep the extensions hidden (as opposed to just that's how MS made it, accept it, and they have no urgent need to change it). Everyone has their own view and their reasons either way of course (and apparently MS had theirs). But while giving it more thought, I came up with a real world parallel that show how silly MS was for hiding them in the first place (imo): *** WARNING --- EXTREME SARCASTIC CONTENT AHEAD - IF YOU LACK HUMOR, STOP READING NOW --- WARNING *** Have you noticed how most (all?) roads have a standard suffix names (e.g. Avenue, Lane, Drive, Road, Loop). Well.. that just seems like unnecessary fluff that should be hidden. So instead of "Maple Drive", it is just "Maple".. instead of "Cherry Lane", just "Cherry". Of course that name on the end means something, but most people don't know or care.. so why not just drop those pesky qualifiers from street signs, maps, and addresses. Yes, some may throw out hypothetical questions like "What if I need to reach Maple Drive, but in this region there is a Maple Drive, Maple Lane, and Maple Avenue? On the map, they are all listed as just Maple." I mean really.. what are the odds this situation would ever come up? Practicality zero! And what if a few out there experience confusion in a few rare scenarios? Why should the masses be bothered by this extra information just to satisfy those few individuals that have what is clearly their problem, not mine. Just accept how much this would simplify our lives -- no more "Daddy, why do all the street signs say "Ave" around our house, but they say "Rd" at my school?" Who wouldn't be glad to not have to deal with that question in their life. I mean really.. can't those kids just be happy with being ignorant about the world. :omg:
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If you receive a file named "playme.exe" and has a Windows Media Player icon, you do need to know the extension. Even if you are a lay person. Or else you cannot even be warned. There is no excuse for not knowing what you're doing.
Martijn Smitshoek wrote:
If you receive a file named "playme.exe"
You're talking about attachments which are handled in a different program, not Windows Explorer.
Martijn Smitshoek wrote:
you do need to know the extension
There is difference between "seeing" an extension, and "knowing" what it means. There is no guarantee that even if a user sees the extension, he's not going to ignore it or worse understand what it means. And this debate can go on endlessly. But again, that's a different issue altogether.
Martijn Smitshoek wrote:
There is no excuse for not knowing what you're doing.
True in general... But your point is? Everyone should get a degree in computer science before touching a computer? The post here refers to people who know and understand the basics. For them, that extension is simply "noise"!