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Learn how to show file extensions in:

Windows 7
Windows Vista
Windows XP

There are many tasks that can be performed in various versions of Microsoft Windows only if you are able to see the file extensions of file types. By default, all the new versions of Windows hide the file extensions -- but it is easy to change that default. In this article, I'll show you how you can do that for Windows XP and Windows Vista.

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Show File Extensions in Windows 7

Follow these steps to show file extensions in Windows 7:

1. Go to any Explorer window and choose Organize | Folder and Search Options, as shown in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1: Folder and search options
   
   
2. This opens the Folder Options dialog box (see Figure 2). Select the View tab -- scroll down under Advanced settings -- and deselect the Hide extensions for known file types (highlighted in red) option. Click OK.
   
   
   Figure 2: Hide extensions for known file types

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Show File Extensions in Windows Vista

Follow these steps to show file extensions in Windows Vista:

1. Go to My Computer and choose Organize | Folder and Search Options, as shown in Figure 3.
   
   
   Figure 3: Folder and Search Options
   
   
2. This opens the Folder Options dialog box (see Figure 4). Select the View tab -- scroll down under Advanced Settings -- and deselect the Hide extensions for known file types option. Click OK.
   
   
   Figure 4: Hide extensions for known file types

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Show File Extensions in Windows XP

Follow these steps to show file extensions in Windows XP

1. Go to My Computer and choose Tools | Folder Options, as shown in Figure 5.
   
   
   Figure 5: Folder Options
   
   
2. This opens the Folder Options dialog box that you can see in Figure 6 -- in this multi-tabbed dialog box, select the View tab (again, refer to Figure 6). Scroll down the list of Advanced Settings, and deselect the Hide extensions for known file types option. Click OK.
   
   
   Figure 6: Hide extensions for known file types

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