Win10 - .dll files always visable, anyway to "hide" them?

[ianh]

Hi all, in my win7 system .dll files are hidden by default yet (classed as "hidden" by windows natively) yet for some reason, in Win10 them are all visible which heavily clutters my screen when I'm working inside folders.

This is a good example, in this game folder all the DLL files in my Win7 folder are hidden so I have a few folders and a few icons to search when doing stuff yet in my Win10 folder over 1/2 the screen is taken up by these bloody DLL files.

How it is currently -

How I want it to look, all the DLL's are hidden -

Is there anyway to tell Win10 to "hide" DLL files? I've trawled Google but apparently I'm the only known human being with this question!

 

[AHarvey]

other than searching for .dll and then hiding them all manually I'm not sure there is. If it's just a few select folders, I'd just search that folder for .dll, ctrl+A to select all, and set file attributes to hidden.

I can't see a way of making .dll's hidden by default short of writing a script to do it.

Just wondering if you could edit the registry to set all .dll's file attribute as hidden as default, maybe something in Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.dll

A Powershell script would probably be the easiest option, however, I'd be worried about setting file attributes to just hidden as that would overwrite any other attributes that are already assigned.

Powershell script to find files of a certain type
Powershell script to edit file attributes

 

[Blackjack Davy]

In Windows 7 its (enable menu bar) then Folder > Tools > Folder Options > View > under "Hidden files and folders" tick option "Don't show hidden files, folders or drives"

is this not available in Windows 10?

 

[AHarvey]

In Windows 7 its (enable menu bar) then Folder > Tools > Folder Options > View > under "Hidden files and folders" tick option "Don't show hidden files, folders or drives"

is this not available in Windows 10?

it is the same but .dll's aren't automatically set to hidden files so it doesn't hide them

 

[ianh]

Thanks for the replies folks, looks like it's not just a simple fix then. I've no idea why MS decided to remove DLL's "hidden" attribute between Win7 and Win10 but it's annoying as hell that they did.

 

[Rroff]

Thanks for the replies folks, looks like it's not just a simple fix then. I've no idea why MS decided to remove DLL's "hidden" attribute between Win7 and Win10 but it's annoying as hell that they did.

Seems pretty much par for the course with Windows 10.

 

[AHarvey]

It's been bugging me so:

Open notepad
type in: attrib /s /d +h *.dll
save as hidedll.bat

Copy that bat file into the uppermost folder that you want to start hiding dll's, so either C: or if it's just your PC games c:/games/ etc

Run it to hide all .dll's in that folder and ALL subfolders


You can create another bat file with "attrib /s /d -h *.dll" for unhiding them.

Tested this on my machine, works a treat!

 

[Rroff]

EDIT: nm /s switch should do that

 

[ianh]

Thanks @AHarvey - Just a quick question, will this "over-write" the DLL properties so they will only have "Hidden" as an attribute, or will this just add "Hidden" to any existing properties?

As some of the DLL's will have other properties active like "Read Only" etc which, if over-written may cause some gaming problems, I want to make sure I don't screw anything up!

 

[Randomface74]

There's no reason a dll should be hidden, they contain essential stuff for things to work.

They probably could have been better organised into a folder or something, but take that up with whoever made the game.

 

[ianh]

Billy - The files will still be there, they'll just be hidden from view until you decide to view them. It's a Win10 issue not a "game" issue as the same game folders in Win7 are much easier to read with the DLL's automatically hidden and the game still works.