Hidden, or TRULY hidden?

[Newby]

http://fuckmicrosoft.com/content/ms-hidden-files.shtml

Any comments?

[Warrior]

That's pretty funny. I wonder how explorer differentiates what to "truly" hide and what to psuedo hide.

[Sidoh]

I definitely don't think this is static.  A few days ago, I was working on a teacher's laptop.  There's a bug in XP when a profile is created from Default User (this is the case with everyone who logs into our domain using our login scripts) where the start menu from "All Programs" refuses to build.  It's really strange and I'm not exactly sure of the precise cause, but it's easy to fix on most machines.

You go into another profile (usually "Administrator," which is a local account), copy the NTUSER.DAT file from there over the top of the one contained in the glitched profile.

When I opened the folder in explorer, the file didn't appear; this wasn't surprising, since it was a new laptop.  No one had enabled "show all files" or disabled "hide system files."  I did so, refreshed the window, but to no avail.  NTUSER.DAT was still invisible.  I even restarted explorer (end task -> new task "explorer") and rebooted the machine.  It still didn't work.

This was rather puzzling, since it's shown on every other machine I've had to do it on (including my own, for other reasons).  I opened up a DOS window, navigated into the teacher's profile and ran dir.  Nothing.  Intuitively, I next tried dir /a.  There it was.  NTUSER.DAT, nice and cozy inside of the teacher's profile.  I tried doing copy through DOS (with extra parameters, obviously), but it wouldn't work!  I even tried safe mode.  It wasn't worth getting into the recovery console over.  I just made a copy of her profile and copied the entire Administrator profile over the old copy.  That worked.

Conclusively, there are obviously ways to "edit" which files explorer chooses to hide.

[MyndFyre]

It's not that they're truly hidden, and you don't need to go into "true DOS mode" (restart to command prompt) to get it.

Code: [Select]

C:\Documents and Settings\Robert A. Paveza\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Fil
es>dir /ad
 Volume in drive C is Rob's Notebook Hard Drive
 Volume Serial Number is 683E-5D18

 Directory of C:\Documents and Settings\Robert A. Paveza\Local Settings\Temporar
y Internet Files

02/01/2006  12:00    <DIR>          .
02/01/2006  12:00    <DIR>          ..
02/01/2006  12:00    <DIR>          AntiPhishing
02/03/2006  01:10    <DIR>          Content.IE5
03/07/2006  00:38    <DIR>          Content.MSO
01/11/2006  00:44    <DIR>          FrontPageTempDir
03/07/2006  00:32    <DIR>          Low
02/20/2006  13:08    <DIR>          OLK2EDB
09/21/2005  23:07    <DIR>          Z5JVUGOJ
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               9 Dir(s)  13,895,622,656 bytes free


Code: [Select]

C:\Documents and Settings\Robert A. Paveza\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Fil
es\Content.IE5>dir /a
 Volume in drive C is Rob's Notebook Hard Drive
 Volume Serial Number is 683E-5D18

 Directory of C:\Documents and Settings\Robert A. Paveza\Local Settings\Temporar
y Internet Files\Content.IE5

02/03/2006  01:10    <DIR>          .
02/03/2006  01:10    <DIR>          ..
03/02/2006  19:11    <DIR>          0LS3GBGV
03/02/2006  20:01    <DIR>          170MV1H0
11/08/2005  10:20    <DIR>          2TAXK3A9
03/07/2006  00:36    <DIR>          4LEJ8P2R
03/06/2006  23:31    <DIR>          6ZE9KLCV
03/02/2006  19:11    <DIR>          73YXZZKV
03/06/2006  00:38    <DIR>          7EZTT9VR
03/02/2006  20:53    <DIR>          7VIB6P23
03/02/2006  20:02    <DIR>          83S8SSUA
11/08/2005  10:22                67 desktop.ini
03/07/2006  00:54    <DIR>          DR717HRC
03/06/2006  01:36    <DIR>          E1OBM9QD
03/07/2006  00:07    <DIR>          ET2VW163
03/07/2006  14:00    <DIR>          G5QNG5M7
03/07/2006  22:34    <DIR>          G9WFCV0J
03/07/2006  22:45         8,372,224 index.dat
03/02/2006  19:11    <DIR>          KXWP2NWH
03/02/2006  19:11    <DIR>          MVG3ZSTS
03/06/2006  01:14    <DIR>          NUZXE4N8
03/07/2006  14:02    <DIR>          OTUV8DY3
03/07/2006  22:55    <DIR>          U8M9N1WC
03/07/2006  00:57    <DIR>          W1OL8JEB
11/08/2005  10:22    <DIR>          WL0H6ZG1
03/07/2006  14:02    <DIR>          XWCFTTOX
               2 File(s)      8,372,291 bytes
              24 Dir(s)  13,895,614,464 bytes free
These folders are translated by a shell extension that's built into Explorer that translates index.dat into files you've downloaded.  This functionality can be disabled without restarting your computer.

Code: [Select]

C:\Documents and Settings\Robert A. Paveza\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Fil
es\Content.IE5>type desktop.ini
[.ShellClassInfo]
UICLSID={7BD29E00-76C1-11CF-9DD0-00A0C9034933}

C:\Documents and Settings\Robert A. Paveza\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Fil
es\Content.IE5>attrib desktop.ini -h -s

C:\Documents and Settings\Robert A. Paveza\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Fil
es\Content.IE5>ren desktop.ini blarg.ini

C:\Documents and Settings\Robert A. Paveza\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Fil
es\Content.IE5>cd ..

C:\Documents and Settings\Robert A. Paveza\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Fil
es>attrib desktop.ini -h -s

C:\Documents and Settings\Robert A. Paveza\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Fil
es>ren desktop.ini blarg.ini

And here you have it: c:\documents and settings\robert a. paveza\local settings\temporary internet files pre-blarg:


... and post-blarg:


The Content.IE5 subfolder pre-blarg:


... and post-blarg:


People need to learn how to get a grip and understand how their operating system works before making grandiose conspiracy theories.

[Warrior]

I had a hunch you could view it via cmd.exe, I assumed they had done some research

[MyndFyre]

I had a hunch you could view it via cmd.exe, I assumed they had done some research

Towards they end (after I made the post) I read they said you could get rid of desktop.ini, but the claim that you need to reboot to the command prompt is patently false.

[Sidoh]

I definitely don't think this is static.  A few days ago, I was working on a teacher's laptop.  There's a bug in XP when a profile is created from Default User (this is the case with everyone who logs into our domain using our login scripts) where the start menu from "All Programs" refuses to build.  It's really strange and I'm not exactly sure of the precise cause, but it's easy to fix on most machines.

You go into another profile (usually "Administrator," which is a local account), copy the NTUSER.DAT file from there over the top of the one contained in the glitched profile.

When I opened the folder in explorer, the file didn't appear; this wasn't surprising, since it was a new laptop.  No one had enabled "show all files" or disabled "hide system files."  I did so, refreshed the window, but to no avail.  NTUSER.DAT was still invisible.  I even restarted explorer (end task -> new task "explorer") and rebooted the machine.  It still didn't work.

This was rather puzzling, since it's shown on every other machine I've had to do it on (including my own, for other reasons).  I opened up a DOS window, navigated into the teacher's profile and ran dir.  Nothing.  Intuitively, I next tried dir /a.  There it was.  NTUSER.DAT, nice and cozy inside of the teacher's profile.  I tried doing copy through DOS (with extra parameters, obviously), but it wouldn't work!  I even tried safe mode.  It wasn't worth getting into the recovery console over.  I just made a copy of her profile and copied the entire Administrator profile over the old copy.  That worked.

Conclusively, there are obviously ways to "edit" which files explorer chooses to hide.

By DOS window, I meant cmd.exe.

[Warrior]

Well they said it like that, maybe they meant that too? Is this site even serious or is it just one of those sites like the IE loving website that Sidoh had some time ago?

[Sidoh]

Well they said it like that, maybe they meant that too? Is this site even serious or is it just one of those sites like the IE loving website that Sidoh had some time ago?

Haha, www.spreadinternetexplorer.com is a complete and total joke (not sure if you were implying that, kind of sounded like you weren't from the given context).

I'm pretty sure its serious, but that article was pretty stupid.