(This is a guest author article.)

There are some folders that contain files you don’t want anyone else than you to see. This may include your account statements, or your personal porn collection. For this you can make those folders in Windows XP invisible.

Here’s how to do it

• Navigate through My Computer to the folder you want to make invisible.
• Rename the folder by right-clicking on it & selecting rename, or by simply pressing F2 after highlighting the folder (by a single click.) & erase the original folder name. Now while holding down ALT key, press 0160 & then press the RETURN (ENTER) key.
• The folder name will now be gone. Right click the folder & scroll down to properties. Go to ‘Change Icon’ & navigate through the icon-list. Somewhere in the middle of all the icons, you will see three or four blank icons. Apply them & you’ll see that your folder is now invisible along with its name.

How this works

When you press 0160 while holding down ALT key, you’ll see the cursor move a position ahead (as you have presses the spacebar). So, you are actually not removing the name at all, but are creating a special character (spacing) that cannot be seen. Now from where do these invisible icons pop in, I don’t really know! I hope I’ll get to know this soon.

The problems with it

• When you have applied this trick to a single folder in a directory, then you can’t apply this to any more folders in the same directory. This is because when you do this again, the same special spacing is inserted into the name and when you hit enter you get an error message that a folder by this name already exists. I also tried inserting a space by pressing the spacebar after the ALT+0160 hoping it would be recognized as another folder name but it wasn’t.
• If you have “auto-arranged the icons by name” then the invisible folders will be placed at the first places and the named folders are placed after them. Thus anyone can easily guess that ‘some matters are missing’ and need to be ‘looked into’.

Getting over ‘em

• For the first problem, you can do the same to another folder in the same directory by pressing ALT+0160 two times, three times, four times and so on as the number of folders you want to make invisible. This is because when you first make a folder invisible, its name is 1 char in length. Then you press the ALT+0160 combo twice for another folder making its name consist of 2 char length. Thrice for the third, and so on. Thus, you can make as many folders invisible (of course you have to select a blank icon for each one of them.)!
• For the second issue. Turn off auto-arrange. Place the invisible folders after the visible folders

Regards,
Abhinav Sood
www.InspiritBlog.com