Trick to Enable Show Hidden Files and Folders in Windows
Some viruses or Trojans is smart enough to hide themselves into a corner of the computer system, and then effectively force disable the “Show all hidden files and folders” or “Show all hidden files, folders and drives” option under “Folder Options”. When it happens, hidden files, folders and drives on the PC do not been shown or displayed even though user has attempted to apply the settings to show the hidden files. The virus implements a policy such as “Shockwave.dll” that’s forcing system to keep hidden files forever not visible or hidden.
If your anti-virus or anti-malware solution is unable to get rid of the malware, and you’re desperately need to view the hidden files, here’s the workaround to enable system to show hidden files and folders again. There are many viruses that may cause the hidden files cannot be visible error, thus the following solution may not work on some system.
- Go to Start Menu and click on Run (Windows Vista and Windows 7 uses Start Search instead).
- Type RegEdit and press Enter to run Registry Editor.
- Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hidden\SHOWALL - In the right pane, verify that the CheckedValue value data is REG_DWORD type. If it’s not (such as belongs to REG_SZ), then delete the CheckedValue value data.
- If CheckedValue has been delete, create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it as CheckedValue.
- Double click on CheckedValue and change its value data to 1 (virus may change it to 0 or 2).
- Within the same registry key, verify that the Type value data is of REG_SZ type, and has the value data radio. If not, set it to radio. Virus may change it to blank.
- Set the system to reveal or show all hidden files, folders and drives, and then check if hidden files and folders are show.
Tip: Some virus may also disable the Registry Editor. Here’s the trick to re-enable Registry Editor.
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Entries (RSS)
September 17th, 2009 09:32
i already tried it. what happen next is, it won’t allow me to create a new CheckedValue.
everytime a delete CheckedValue and create a new one as instructed above. after i close the regedit and open it again it will changed back to it’s current value CheckedValue 0.
how to solve this problem?
-thanks
September 9th, 2009 23:46
graet work. its working. thanks a lot?
August 16th, 2009 14:48
many thanks for the tips, now i can show my hidden files, before is always failed
August 15th, 2009 17:31
These fields are correct as should be.Yet i have no folder optio in tools
August 2nd, 2009 22:37
Thanks MAN It Works
May 15th, 2009 13:48
Thanks,
The tip is so to the point that it is almost foolproof. And above all, it works! Thanks a lot.
May 13th, 2009 18:09
Doesn’t anyone proof-read this stuff? The grammar is appalling and this makes the article confusing and difficult to read.
March 19th, 2009 06:07
Thanks, you just saved me a few hours of frustration to the point where I want to format my pc.
@”r bower”: it works so try it and it’s not that hard btw
March 1st, 2009 21:06
Someone or perhaps an editor/proof-reader at mydigitallife should re-read this article, especially the first paragraph as to “been”. Either there is bad grammar or a line or two is missing. I have not tried this workaround as it seems too complicated to me as a novice.
March 1st, 2009 08:15
Great, thanks.