Unwanted "Desktop.ini" icons appear on desktop. Windows 7 64bit

Anonymous
2009-12-13T07:16:51+00:00

These icons are not short cuts, but notepad files.  Why are they there?   How can they be eliminated?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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Ramesh 181.7K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2009-12-13T09:17:29+00:00

Hi AntipodeamRJ,

Enabling the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) setting in Folder Options hides the two Desktop.ini files, as well. To access the Folder Options, open Windows Explorer, click Organize, click Folder and Search Options and select the View tab.

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Desktop Experience]

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-09-02T15:31:07+00:00

    This information was helpful for me too; however, I had disabled the "hide protected operating system files (recommended)" because I'd recently had two pendrives infected with a virus that hides all the files. The only way to see what files I had in those pendrives was to disable that option. Is there any other way to be able to recover the files "hidden" by that virus that does not require disabling this option?

    Thanks for your help.

    Willy

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-08-17T10:24:33+00:00

    Hi Ramesh, 

    Thank you for your answer.

    I thought this is a virus on my computer and I used to manually delete these files everytime, but you helped me overcome this issue, but changing folder options.

    Please keep on posting such useful information about the system, we appreciate your help. Thanks again.

    Regards,

    Kuldeep D

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-07-05T12:08:34+00:00

    Thank you very much Mr Ramesh

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-06-19T17:46:51+00:00

    Did you run in elevated administrative state as he said?

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