Thursday, July 3, 2008

Vista Secret Folder

This is not a registry hack. We are merely using the registry to discover CLSIDs (Class Identifiers).
The idea behind this tip is to create a folder which is invisible to the Vista indexer. Please be aware that the files are neither encrypted, nor hidden from anyone looking with Windows Explorer. To my mind this limitation confines the usefulness of this tip to special situations. However, from a learning point of view this tip is most instructive.
Topics for Vista's Secret Folder

Instructions to Create a Secret Folder
For your files to remain hidden, this secret folder needs a special extension .{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}.
Create a normal folder, for example stuff. Now rename it with this special CLSID (Class ID) extension. For this trick to work, remember both the dot and the curly brackets.
stuff.{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683}

Testing your hidden files
Create a file inside your folder with the .{26EE0668-A00A-44D7-9371-BEB064C98683} extension. For example 'Guy Stuff.doc'. Now search for Guy Stuff.doc. You should get a negative result, Vista's search will ignore files in this folder.
Just in case you believe this negative result is due to slow indexing, create another document in a regular folder, search for that document. This time you should have a positive result.
There is a fancy variation of my tip using a different clsid extension. I say fancy, because it creates a Recycle Bin folder
.{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}

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