How To Hide An Installed Program In Windows

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In this post I will show you how you can hide an installed program from others in your system. I was in college when I created this trick to disallow my friends from playing games on my PC. I hope you 'll find this trick helpful. So, here's the trick,

First of all locate directory of installation from Program Files folder in C drive. For example you want to hide mozilla firefox installation from others then go to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox folder and find firefox.exe. Once you get the main executable file, open notepad and type complete path of firefox.exe in it, for our example it will appear like this,

“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”

should be with quotes otherwise it'll not work, now save this notepad file with whatever name you want with .cmd extention. For example I assume file is saved as fox.cmd . Now delete shortcuts for firefox from start menu, desktop and quick launch. Now open command prompt and change directory to Program Files and type following commands,

C:\Program Files>attrib /s /d /l +s +h +r "Mozilla Firefox"

You'll find Mozilla Firefox directory disappeared from Program Files. Now paste your fox.cmd file in C:\Windows\System32\ folder.

As you will remove all shortcuts to executable file there will be no link and as the directory is hidden using attrib command no one can see it. Now to run your program open command prompt and type fox or the name with which you saved .cmd file. Within seconds you will see firefox or hidden program popping out in new window. One of the advantages of this trick is that you'll be able to disallow people from using unwanted programs even though he/she will have admin privileges specially your family members and friends.

Please note that the hidden installed program will appear in add/remove program list but will be accessible to the person who knows name of .cmd file. Have fun.