In order to get an unadulterated view of what is on your machine, I recommend making two setting changes.
First, make hidden files and folders visible. When you are troubleshooting and looking for files, you don’t want something to go unnoticed.
Secondly, show extensions for known file types. Instead of relying upon icons to tell you the file extension, see it for yourself.
Open a folder or go to My Computer. From the Menu bar, select Tools, Folder Options…
Click on the View tab.
Set the Radio Button under Advanced Settings to Show hidden files and folders.
Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types.
Now, when you look at files you will see their full name like example.txt instead of just example.