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Today my professor and I were discussing hidden files, and he mentioned how some system files were hidden. When I asked why, he likened it to using a safe, that the developers of Windows wanted to keep certain files hidden to protect them from other people accessing them or exploiting it.

My question regards how system32 is easily accessible by anyone. I can easily go into the C: drive and mess around with system32. I'm sure plenty of you have heard of a "prank" in which people (typically stupid) would believe that one way to speed up a computer would be to get rid of system32, which would effectively turn your computer into a very efficient paperweight. I'm sure there are also users who would assume "I don't see any of my Pictures or Documents in this system32 file; must be useless I guess".

Why would the developers then easily expose system32? In what context would an average user really need system32, to warrant the developers of Windows to leave it easily exposed? From what someone else had told me, Windows used to keep system32 files hidden, but now they don't anymore. Is this true?

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    short answer: people only hide system files when they are in userland directories like user profile dirs, etc. hiding isn;t done for the purpose of security, its for clutter-busting, and whats the point of busting clutter in folders you will never be in, or that are cluttered by nature? Also, note that those files and locations must be accessible to the user so that they can run programs like notepad or cmd.exe, and so that userland apps like Word can load system libraries and run executables that ship with windows itself. Apr 24, 2014 at 15:11
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    It's probably because some stupid software would break if it was hidden Apr 24, 2014 at 18:24

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You are incorrect in that people can just delete the System32 folder. Take a look at the security settings for a file in the System32 folder:\

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As you can see, not even administrators can delete the file, since they only have Read & execute permissions by default. And they cant change the permissions easily, either. See below, since even the administrator is not the owner of the file.

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The System32 folder contains executables and dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that the user and/or application might need access to, so hiding it would not be useful.

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A few reasons... Under system32 there are a lot of files and folders which may be of use to a lot of people:

  • C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts is often played with by gamers
  • C:\windows\system32\inetsrv is often played with by amateur web jockeys.

There are loads of them...

Also, as a systems admin, I often have to navigate people through these folders and get them to run various diagnostics programs and logfiles stored within them. If it wasn't as simple as unhiding hidden and system folders, this would present more problems!

I think that by hiding them by default but making them easily unhideable - the folders are protected to a good extend from the average novice. If you dont know what the sys32 folder is, you probably wont be going into folder options to permanently unhide it...

As for the one-click "show folder contents" link in windows explorer - yeah, not a smart idea - I guess the developers would label it as enabling user functionality in the simplest form, but its still not a smart move.

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