Monday, March 1, 2010

"Show hidden files and folder" not visible in Windows??

Imagine you made a folder hidden and next time try to unhide the folder you donot see the option "Show hidden files and folder"

you Just have one option
"Do not show hidden files and folders" with the radio button and and it is selected. you can try to press the mouse button and the enter key as hard as possible but you can't unselect that radio.

Well it was due to some spyware infecting the machine.

Although you have to clean up the machine from the infection
But there is a easy way to see the hidden files and folders, and it requires some registry tweek.

open regedit.exe from the run prompt and navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software >Microsoft >Windows >CurrentVersion >Explorer >Advanced >Folder > Hidden

You will see two keys NOHIDDEN AND SHOWALL

In NOHIDDEN double click CheckedValue and set value to 0
In SHOWALL double click CheckedValue and set value to 1

There is a very strong possibility that you donot even see the CheckedValue in SHOWALL. In that case

Create a new DWORD Value named CheckedValue and assign it a value 1.


Go back to the Folder menu bar and navigate to Tools> Folder Option >View

Under Hidden files and folder tree you will see both the options
Do not show hidden files and folders
Show hidden files and folder.

Things are back to normal well not yet you still have to get the machine away from the spyware infection.

Long live Windows !!!!