How to Find Hidden or Locked Files in a Directory

There are ways in which you can hide a file; like either using DOS commands or using 3rd party softwares. This article deals with just confirming that a hidden file does exist. It just goes to show you that just because you can’t see something, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there! If you can confirm that a file exist in a directory you can further do something to show it. This method will show all the files in a directory, despite being hidden by any software or method.

steps

1. Open command prompt with administrative rights.
   • Consider you're in the directory “C:\Windows” and you want to see all the files in that directory even though if the files in that directory is hidden by the best hiding algorithm in the world.
2. Type: “dir /ah/p/w” [Without Quotes]
   • An example would be: c:\Windows\dir /ah/p/w
3. Press enter: the command should display all the hidden files in that directory with no problems. After you've confirmed the existence of the hidden file, you can do further to break into the hidden file, and show it; thats up to you .

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