That's why you have to disable "Hide protected operating system files" in order to see them.
One of the settings, along with hiding the file extensions, that I always disable without exception.
Legacy compatibility reasons, I presume. I know this worked to super-hide files with NT 3.5x/4 and Win-9x or used when copying files by those OS's. And I'm fairly certain that it existed for "temporary" files with MS-DOS 6.x and 5.x too, maybe even earlier version. Are there any MS-DOS 2.x / pre lan-manager pros on HN who know how long this has been around?
One might argue that the correct fix is to remove the concept of super-hidden files entirely. For backwards compatibility, just never report that a file is super-hidden.
Normal users don't see hidden files, so normal users are served well. Users who want to see the complete list of files (to clean up garbage, notice crap left behind by malware, fix problems caused by leftover malware, etc) probably want to see files that start with ~.
Alternatively, the options could be "hide hidden files", "show hidden files but not protected operating system files", and "show all files, even protected operating system files", rather than having separate, confusing controls.
Okay, so who decided on that? Is it a PM or a developer? What's their reasons and why didn't they document it?
Do I have other "invisible" files around that I can't see?
Backwards compatibility.
Older versions of the Office suite used ~ files as locks. New versions flag those same files as hidden and system, so Microsoft hacked in a compatibility fix for old versions of Office to mark all ~ files similarly automagically.
I love all the comments here about "how could this be?"
Repeat after me...There is no magic. There is no perfect.
This software was used by hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people. They got work done with it. Think your favorite pile of C code is "more correct" or "more sublime"? Maybe. By many measures of successful that doesn't matter. And that's why those "it will be perfect this time" rewrites of UNIX/Linux aren't in use and Unix/Linux is.
Interesting personification of Explorer. One might think it were a person the way it is described.
So, how do we fix it?
How could this be in the core of an OPERATING SYSTEM? At one of the largest software manufacturers in the world? I legitimately do not understand.
Violation of orthogonality of design. http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch04s02.html#ort...