Restore hidden folders in Windows when infected with virus

In many cases, it is often due to a virus attack that the hidden folders of the system cannot be displayed even when the “ Show hidden files and folders ” option in Folder Options is enabled. Some of the following methods will help to handle this problem.

It is possible that some malware has modified the settings in Windows to disable or prevent users from changing the show/hide files from Folder Options. We will try the following methods:

Restore the system

The most effective way is to restore your system. Restore using your system Restore, so that you can change the system registry. It is not harmful to your files. If you do not want, you can cancel.

Before restoring the system, you need to remember the date when the problem occurred to restore the system to an earlier date. To restore the system, do the following:

- Go to Start / All Programs / Accessories / System Tool / System Restore .

- Select “ Restore my computer to an earlier time ” then select Next .

- You will receive information on the date when the system can be restored. Select a date before your computer crashed and continue to Next .

- The system will restart and you will have to wait a few minutes for the restoration process to complete.

Select the time to restore the system

Note : If you are using Kaspersky VirusGuard, you must disable the “ Enable self defense ” option in the program’s installation folder. Otherwise the recovery process will not work, and you will receive the message “ Restoration Incomplete ”.

Modify the Registry

- Go to Start / Run and type regedit . Navigate to the path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Advanced\Folder\Hidden\SHOWALL

- Find and delete the entry named CheckedValue and the value is 2 .

Create DWORD in Registry Editor

Create a new DWORD, by right-clicking on the New / DWORD Value box , name it CheckedValue and enter its value number as 1. Run

the registry code

- Open Notepad and copy the code below into Notepad, then save this Notepad file to your computer with the name folderoption.reg .

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hidden] 

“Text”= “@shell32.dll,-30499” 

“Type”=“group” 

“Bitmap”=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,\00,25,00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,53,00,\48,00,45,00,4c,00,4c,00,33,00,32,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,2c,00,34,00,00,\00 

“HelpID”=“shell.hlp#51131” 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hidden\NOHIDDEN] 

“RegPath”=“Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\Advanced” 

“Text”=“@shell32.dll,-30501” 

“Type”=“radio” 

“CheckedValue”=dword:00000002 

“ValueName”=“Hidden” 

“DefaultValue”=dword:00000002 

“HkeyRoot”=dword:80000001 

“HelpID”=“shell.hlp#51104” 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hidden\SHOWALL] 

“RegPath”=“Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\Advanced” 

“Text”=“@shell32.dll,-30500” 

“Type”=“radio” 

“CheckedValue”=dword:00000001 

“ValueName”=“Hidden” 

“DefaultValue”=dword:00000002 

“HkeyRoot”=dword:80000001 

“HelpID”=“shell.hlp#51105” 

- Close Notepad and double-click on this new file. Select Yes . A confirmation message will appear, click OK . Check the display of hidden folders again after performing the above 3 methods.