First you need to explain the origins, the basics. To understand further, you need to familiarize yourself with the initial concepts. For example, what is a file in simple language: this is a certain amount of structured information, united by a common meaning and collected in one shell.
With a file, it is more or less clear, that is, it is any textual, multimedia user information of any length and size. Clear? More than. But there is another vague concept - a certain file extension. What it is?
The extension is used to indicate the type of file. In other words, it helps the computer determine the program with which you can open it, and also helps a person quickly understand the type of information contained in it.
So, the file is the information itself, the file extension is its type.
The need to create information without its specific type in Windows: the origins
To solve many technical problems in the Windows operating system, you need to create information without a type, that is, a file without an extension, or empty. How to create an empty file on a Windows system? The article provides the answer to this question in the form of a simple example with photos so that inexperienced PC users can understand the whole process. So, first we’ll decide whether the type of information is displayed on the computer at all. Usually, developers of Windows OS hide the extensions of all files for ordinary users, but this instruction will not work for this instruction.
For verification, we will create the simplest text file of the notepad and call it “How to create an empty file”:
- To do this, right-click in the explorer menu.
- In the context menu, move the cursor to the line "Create".
- We select "Text file" from the presented files.
A notepad file appears in the explorer window with the highlighted name “New Text Document” - the system offers to rename it. Perform this action.
We will call it, we pay attention to the fact that, in addition to the name, there are no more indications on the right side. This is just a sign that in the Windows system the information type is hidden in the settings.
In the explorer’s menu, go to the upper left corner, where there is a “File” line, click on it, another context menu appears in which we look for the “Parameters” line, click on it.
A contextual window with three tabs appears in which you need to go to the “View” tab, and in it select the line marked with the checkmark “Hide extensions of registered file types”. We uncheck it, click on the bottom "Apply" and OK. Next, we return to our file and see the changes in it.
Thus, we see the “.” Symbol appearing after the name of the text document, as well as three Latin letters txt. This is the previously hidden designation of the file extension, in this case the abbreviation of the text file extension.
Let's move on with the file and its type.
Now we solve the main task - to create an empty file without extension in Windows:
- Select the desired file with the left mouse button.
- We press the right mouse button, in the context menu that appears, select the “Rename” line.
- The file name is highlighted, we move the cursor from the file name to its extension, in our case to .txt, and we erase all the characters up to the file name with the Backspace key.
- A warning window appears, in which we boldly click "Yes."
- Press the Enter key to save our actions.
As a result of such actions, we obtain the necessary result - an empty file without its own type.
File information and changing its format: conclusion
The instruction presented above, although intended for inexperienced users, is also useful to those who are going to carry out any technical actions with these empty files (checking an external drive, checking or saving a file of a browser system, etc.) independently or according to another detailed instructions. If the user is still unfamiliar with the indicated operations and has looked into this instruction for the sake of curiosity - in practice it is better not to use it, or before the action is performed, it is necessary to save the Windows control point (in order to avoid possible PC malfunctions).
You can change or remove file extensions through the command line, as well as in other operating systems, but that's another story.