Windows File Explorer settings,
the one setting you should change right now to stay safe.
Hi everyone, Leo Notenboom here for askleo.com. This is a setting
that I've talked about for years, and honestly. Honestly,
I still have a hard time understanding why Microsoft hasn't changed the default.
It seems so obvious once you understand
what's going on, that it's a security issue.
It allows spammers and phishing attempts
to basically fool you into doing something other than what you expect. Unless you have
a setting turned the right way, which makes it obvious.
I'm going to show you in both Windows Ten
and Windows Eleven exactly what that setting is.
And we'll also take a look at the Settings or the equivalent Settings dialog
that might apply to some other versions of Windows as well.
So here's Windows Ten.
So I'm going to fire up
Windows File Explorer, and here it is with some random, fairly default setting.
Click on the View menu and the setting
that we care about is this thing that says Show or Hide file name extension.
It is critical, in my opinion,
that you want this to be checked, that you want file name extensions to be visible.
I'll explain exactly why that is.
Shortly,
if you're running a different version of Windows, you may need to go deeper
into the Options dialog box for folder and search options.
In the View tab, you'll see that there is
a setting called Hide extension for known file types.
Make sure that that's unchecked.
It really is the same thing that we've
just done and in fact checking one unchecks the other.
They're stated in opposite ways,
but the bottom line is, however you look at it,
you want extensions for all files to be visible at all times.
So that means this setting, if it's checked, should be unchecked,
and then the View setting file name extension should be shown.
Let me also show you on Windows Eleven exactly what that looks like.
It's very similar. As you might expect.
We'll fire up Windows File Explorer in the View menu.
They have it as a drop down menu under Show.
You want to have file name extensions selected.
Same idea.
You want file name extensions to always be visible, and that other option
for the View tab.
You also want to make sure that Hide extensions for known file types is unset.
Same idea.
We're not wanting to hide anything anytime when it comes to file extensions.
So why is this such a big deal?
Well, in a way, it allows spammers to fool you.
It explicitly allows them to present you with a document that you think is one
thing, but that is exactly or actually something else.
So let's go ahead and look at a document in our Documents folder.
I'm going to go ahead and create something here.
We'll call it a rich text document and it's an example.
So example.rtf. And you can see we've got View file name extension turned on.
So we know exactly what this is.
If we're looking at it in Details view as we are here, you can see the extension
right on the file name, and it also shows you what kind of a file it is over.
In another column. If we go to icons of some sort, it still says example.rtf
but there's no other indication of what it is unless you happen to Hover
your mouse pointer over it, in which case it will tell you what type it is.
Now let's rename that file, shall we?
I'm going to right click on it.
Click on rename.
This time I'm going to call it example.rtf.exe
so after the warning, sure enough, it looks like example.rtf.exe
And if you Hover over it,
it will say that it still thinks it's a rich text document, but it's not.
If we were to look now at Details, you'll see that it says it's an application,
which means that Windows thinks that this
thing is a program that would be run as soon as I tried to double click on it,
which I won't because I haven't set anything up.
But if I were to double click on it, Windows would treat this as a program,
not a document, and it would try to run the program.
But all this is obvious because I've got file name extensions visible.
What if I turn that off?
Now it says example.rtf.
It looks like a document,
and if you're not paying attention, which is really easy to do,
you won't notice that over in this other column it says application.
If you Hover over it, it doesn't say anything.
If you look at it in a small icon view, it still says example.rtf.
you have no idea that it is in fact
an executable program, and if you Hover over it again, it says nothing.
It's not until you double click on it
that it will try to run this program, because remember, it is a program.
And how does malware arrive? As
an attachment to your email. As an executable program.
So with this setting turned off, this looks like a document,
but it's really a program, and it could be a program that contains malware.
What's critical, and I'll say it one more time, is that you want to make sure
that all file name extensions are displayed at all times.
That way you'll know that example.rtf.exe
is a program and not a document.
And in fact, if you ever see something
like this, that is a red flag, you do not want to double click
on that because there's a very good chance that it's got malware.
I hope that's helpful.
I hope that helps you keep safer in the future.
I hope someday Windows changes this
default behavior, but until then, it's on you and me to make sure to go
into Windows File Explorer and change that setting.
It'll Impact File Open Dialogs as well, for the most part.
So it's again very critical.
Very important and I strongly suggest you
make that change right now, if you haven't already.
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for comments on this issue and more, visit askleo.com/5043
I'm Leo Notenboom and this is askleo.com.
Thanks for watching.