How to Show File Extensions in Windows 10, 8 ,7

A single look at the file extension is enough for a regular windows user to determine the type of file he is dealing with. It saves time and makes organizing more efficient. You really don’t need to open a .docx file to determine that it’s a document. The extention itself says it all. In this article today we are going to talk about file extensions, their benefits, their uses and especially, how to Show File extensions in Windows 10, 8 and even Windows 7.

Why do you need file extensions?

File extensions are as important as it gets. Let us see why are they so important and what are their uses:

To determine the kind of file

With so many formats and types of files out there it can get quite a bit confusing without file extensions. For all we know there are more than ten kinds of video formats and not all applications can decode every one of them. Same goes for text documents. Today, when we have softwares specifically targeted towards working with a single file format, we cannot do anything until we know the format of the file. So we need file extensions.

Viruses might duplicate themselves as files

Naming rules of files alowause of ‘.’ in the file name. Now if the file extension visibility is disabled on your computer, you might see a virus ‘ work.doc.exe’ under the name ‘work.doc’. Malwares often disguise themselves as files that are not suspected and enter and corrupt the entire system once they are executed. So without file extensions as you can see, it is almost impossible to differentiate between an executable malware and a textual document.