WORD 7 files

[Segilla]

It seemed a good idea to have all file suffixes displayed so I enabled them.

I now want to revert to default so that they are hidden again, but cannot find where the change was made.

[ChuckFickens]

As ever..... version of windows would help...


It's in folder options, in XP that's on the tools menu on any explorer window, in wndows 7 it's on the organize menu listed as folder and search options.

[Segilla]

Thanks ChuckFickens. It's MS Office Word 2007, but I can't spot folder and search options and don't understand where to look for the organise menu.

[squarebear]

Chuck means are you using Windows XP, Windows Vista and so on. MS Office is the name of a computer program not a version of Windows.

[ChuckFickens]

It's nothing to do with office at all and you've still not said what version of windows.

XP
http://www.fileinfo.c...-show-extensions.html

Vista
http://www.tech-recip...hide_file_extensions/

Windows7
http://malektips.com/...-file-extensions.html

All the above are for how to show the extensions, reverse the setting to disable it.

[Segilla]

Thanks. Found it - but it seems not to be a good idea ... .

[squarebear]

Why do you say that? If you can tell us what operating system you are using, we can give you step by step instructions. Nothing remotely dangerous about it at all.

[ChuckFickens]

I'm not sure why you are saying putting something back to it's default setting isn't a good idea!

[Segilla]

Sorry for the confusion - partly caused by having 2 rigs, one with Vista the other Windows 7. XP was OK.

From my reading of the tip, wisdom is that it is better to be able to see the file extns - which is what I now have enabled - so it seems *not* to be a good idea to revert to the default setting.

[ChuckFickens]

It's not really an issue either way. If you leave it enabled you will have to be very careful not to change the file extensions on anything if you rename it, which it not possible to do if you can't see them.

[rojash]

"If you leave it enabled you will have to be very careful not to change the file extensions on anything if you rename it"
...although one of the improvements in Win7 is that if you have extensions visible, when you choose Rename, it automatically selects only the part of the name before the extension, so although you can still change the extension, it's easier to avoid doing it accidentally.

[ChuckFickens]

I'm liking the way we have now asked 3 times what version of windows is being asked about and we still don't know.

[Segilla]

I thought we were now past the stage where it mattered what version was used. The computer I was referring to has Vista.
Accidentally changing the extn seems to trigger a warning.

[ChuckFickens]

We are, I was purely passing comment.

Accidental changing a file extension is the biggest danger of leaving them visible (enough of a problem for MS to have done something about it in windows7, as pointed out by rojash)

If you do change the extension windows will no longer know what the correct program is to open the file so it will basically stop working properly, the contents of the file will remain intact and changing the extension back to the correct one will make it all work again, But if you change an extension by mistake and then you don't know what the file extension should be you can have problems finding out what the correct one is.

It's generally accepted that it is best for all but advanced users to keep the extensions hidden to ensure an extension can not be changed by mistake.