Options to Change Hidden Files and Folders Settings are not Available in Folder Options

As we all know we can change the settings to show / hide hidden files and folders from "Folder Options" which can be found under Tools menu in Windows XP or in Organize menu under Windows Vista and 7.

But sometimes you might find that the options to change the settings of hidden files and folders are not available in Folder Options. There may be following 4 cases:

A. The whole Hidden Files and Folders tree is not visible.

B. Only the heading Hidden files and folders is visible but it doesn't contain any option to choose from.

C. Only Do not show hidden files and folders option is available.

D. Only Show hidden files and folders option is available.

If you are also facing such problem, then download following ZIP file, extract it and then run the extracted .REG file. It'll ask for confirmation, accept it and your problem will be solved:

enable-options-to-change-hidden-files-and-folders-settings.zip

This article was posted in Troubleshooting, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP.

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19 Comments

Deyaa Addeen Fahmy Shedeed

Great thanks.
Saurabh Gupta

Hi! VG
Is der any way that i can temp. stop IE to start at windows start up to save my RAM & again use it wenever i want to.
Plz suggest. THNX
VG

^^ IE never starts automatically with Windows. If it starts in your system then it might be a virus/spyware infection. Please post your Hijackthis file content in following topic:

http://www.askvg.com/is-your-system-infected-with-a-virus-spyware-adware-trojan/
Saurabh

I know it doesn't. May b i xplained it wrongly.
wenever i start PC i can see d IE.exe In task mgr.(processes) consumin my RAM.
Is der any way that i can temp. stop it to start so dat i can save RAM & again use it wenever i want to.
VG

^^ IE.exe is not Internet Explorer EXE file. Its a virus which is taking CPU resources. Pls follow the steps mentioned in above mentioned topic.
Matt

Worked great. Had a nasty little rootkit/virus that made a bunch of registry changes and this did the trick to have the folder options for hidden files and folders.
resis

Hello,

I have the same problem, "View" is not there. I posted my Hijack This stuff in the "is-your-system-infected-with-a-virus-spyware-adware-trojan" thread, but if it is clean, or will not solve the problem, what can be another reason?
resis

@VG:
As you know from the other thread, it works all fine now, thanks for your time.
AJ

Hey..thanks for the tip, My explorer has the hidden file option after the tweak.
Amar

Hi VG,

Thanks so much for that handy package. Its a pain to manually change the registry keys and there is always a fair amount of risk involved.

Regards,
Amar