Specifications

12
CHAPTER 1 Customizing Windows Explorer
The need to become an expert in Windows iconography is bad enough, but it gets worse.
Not being able to see file extensions also leads to two other problems:
. You can’t rename extensions—For example, suppose you have a text file named
index.txt and you want to rename it to index.html to make it a web page file.
Nope, sorry, you can’t do it with file extensions hidden. If you try—that is, if you
click the file, press F2 to choose the Rename command, and then type
index.html—
you just end up with a text file named
index.html.txt.
. You can’t save a document under an extension of your choice—Similarly, with
file extensions turned off, Windows 7 forces you to save a file using the default
extension associated with an application. For example, if you’re working in Notepad,
every file you save must have a
.txt extension. If you create your own web pages,
for example, you can’t rename these text files with typical web page extensions such
as
.htm, .html, .asp, and so on.
TIP
There is a way to get around the inability to save a document under an extension of
your choice. In the Save As dialog box, use the Save as Type list to select the All Files
option, if it exists. You can then use the File Name text box to type the filename with
the extension you prefer to use.
You can overcome all these problems by turning on file extensions, as described in the
following steps:
1. If you have a folder window open, select Organize, Folder and Search Options (or
Tools, Folder Options if you have the menu displayed; otherwise, click Start, type
folder, and then press Enter to select Folder Options in the search results). The
Folder Options dialog box appears.
2. Click the View tab.
3. Deactivate the Hide Extensions for Known File Types check box.
4. Click OK.
Figure 1.4 shows the Project files with extensions in full display.