Did you already know these hidden folders in Windows 10?

Who says Windows says folders. Each part of Windows 10 is assigned its own folder. Most of them you never open yourself or you may not know because they are hidden. We would like to put some of these folders in Windows 10, hidden or not, in the spotlight.

To all folders within Windows 10 visible, go to the ribbon in Windows Explorer Statue. Place a tick in front of the option there Hidden items. Then click on the button Options and choose Change folder and search options.

If the dialog Folder options opens, go to the tab Display. There you indicate that you want to be able to see the really hidden folders and files, and you do that by ticking the option Hide protected operating system filesto remove.

User folders

The Windows 10 Recycle Bin is basically just a shortcut to a folder. Go to the root of the C partition using Windows Explorer and you will now see the folder $ RECYCLE.BIN. This folder contains the contents of the Windows 10 Recycle Bin.

Another interesting location is the map C: Users, but C: Users could also just like that. The real folder name on the hard drive is Users, but the Dutch version of Windows 10 turns it into Users. There are three interesting subfolders in that Users folder:

1. The subfolder with your own name. It contains all the information that applies to you. Think of the Desktop and the folder Documents.

2. The subfolder Default. The contents of this folder serve as a template for newly created Windows 10 users. Each user gets their own folder and the contents of the Default folder are the clean slate to start with.

3. The subfolder Public. Here are items that can be shared by all users. Consider, for example, a shortcut that appears on all desktops of all users. Note, there is more to it than just the desktop.

Even start menu is folder

We still have to mention a subfolder from C: Users, namely All Users. This is not a real folder, but a reference to another folder: C: ProgramData. In the map C: Users is the subfolder Start Menu to find. You can’t open this subfolder just yet, so it’s time to play a trick with Windows 10’s security.

Click that subfolder Start Menu with the right mouse button and choose Properties. Go to the tab Security and click on Advanced. First change the owner of the folder and change that from SYSTEM in Administrator. In the meantime, it can be seen that the display of the folder is refused. Click on that specific line and then click on edit.

You can then remove the refusal, with the result that the contents of the Start Menu subfolder will become visible a little later.

And the rest!

Then all we have to do is call you some nice (system) folders. First some user folders:

C: Users AppData: Programs can store their settings (and more) in this folder. It can sometimes help to throw away the settings of a crashed program.

C: Users Desktop: This is the Windows Explorer view of your Desktop. With more options for organizing and disposing.

C: Users Documents: All your regular documents are placed here. This folder can also be moved elsewhere – for example D: -.

C: Users LocalSettings: Is also a folder where programs can save settings.

C: Users Recent: Here you will find shortcuts to all files and folders you have recently visited. May be unexpectedly welcome if you have lost something!

C: Users SendTo: This is the folder that interacts with the Windows Explorer Copy to option.

There are also some special system folders that you will mainly find in the root folder C: Windows:

C: Windows Fonts: Here you will find all fonts installed within Windows 10. There is also the option to add and remove fonts.

C: Windows Media: It contains some standard media files, including sounds. You may want to add something to that.

C: Windows Prefetch:This is a folder in which the most important files of applications you often use are pre-loaded. Cleaning up in time can speed up Windows 10.

C: Windows SoftwareDistribution: This is a temporary folder for Windows Update. Can fill up quite a bit along the way. Then disable the Windows Update service and delete the contents of this folder.

C: Windows WinSxS:WinSxS stands for Windows Side By Side. Can contain thousands of folders and files and be many GBs in size. Have a look around, but be careful. Use the Disk Cleanup of Windows 10 to safely clean this folder.

C: Windows System32 spool: What happens here has everything to do with the printers and the print spooler (the queue). A jammed print job can be found here.

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