Can't unhide hidden folders.

Okay, so I recently discovered that some of my folders containing songs in my music I thought had been deleted were not, my folders are hidden.

I have changed the settings in my control panel to show hidden folders but they remain hidden, the only way to access them is to search for an individual song using the windows search bar then proceeding to open containing folder.

While in these folders if I open the properties the Hidden box is checked but also greyed out so I can't uncheck it.

Has anyone got a way of making there folders visible again?


If you know a solution but need more information just let me know, thank you.

Enable the Administrator account and log into the OS that way, then kill off those folders with the real administrator account. After you are done, either disable it, or create a good password that you will remember, but not forget.

Have you tried to take ownership first:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...le-folder-drive-registry-key-windows-8-a.html

Hello Smoggyy, and welcome to Eight Forums.

You might see if you may be able to change the hidden file attribute to not be hidden using OPTION TWO below with a command prompt.

File and Folder - Hide or Unhide - Windows 7 Help Forums

It happened to my friend's PC a while back and it was caused by a Virus and you cannot reset to show hidden file. If all of the above does not work. Try running: Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - Protect, Detect & Remove Malware From Your PC

Brink said:

You might see if you may be able to change the hidden file attribute to not be hidden using OPTION TWO...etc

Click to expand...

I was surprised yesterday to find that my "home directory" under "c:\users" was hidden though two other users' home directories (er...folders) were visible to all users. Attempting a quickie "properties hidden attribute" change was not possible because that check box was grayed out.

Using Option Two of that other post as you noted also did not initially work. When I enabled the display of attributes it turned out that the folder had attributes "HSDI" rather than the simple "D" of the other users' home folders.

So I had to modify the attrib arguments to "attrib -s -h" at the same time (since running attrib twice, once with each, was disallowed).

Anyway, I have zero idea how this attribute change occurred nor when it occurred so will be tracking that down. Maybe that will get me back to trying to figure out why "c:\windows\temp" is no longer accessible, too...(I think I posted about that awhile back).

Thanks (yet again) for the post, though - the immediate problem is "solved" because of it.

Brokensoftware,

I'm glad to hear that you at least got part of your issues solved.

Brink said:

Brokensoftware,

I'm glad to hear that you at least got part of your issues solved.

Click to expand...

Without question this web site has been THE most useful to me for various system problems resolution - I keep coming back here, usually pointed out by Google Search "questions" like this morning's "windows 8.1 cannot unhide folder".

Fantastic resource - thanks.