[Resolved] Files become hidden and can't unhide.

Has anyone seen normal user created folders suddenly becoming hidden magically. And the folder property has the hidden property checked but grayed-out so it can not be unhide?

Background:
I recently did the latest critical updates for Window ME and also ran the McAfee Scan (ver 4.03) with the latest DAT file.
After everything was installed and checked I noticed some folders I made on the desktop were missing (deleted I thought). I did a file search and found them hidden on the desktop. (I then made all hidden files visible and there they were.)

Immediate Problem:
So, I tried to unhide it but the properties hidden check box was
checked and grayed-out...I could not uncheck it. So the folder can't be unhide.

I rebooted...probably not the best thing at the time...because
then I noticed more folders becoming hidden. Also, links in my Start-Program list began to disappear (ie., Accessory, System, Game...) mainly because those folders were becoming hidden as well. [Note: for awhile more folders became hidden after reboots
or accessing the folders.]

I did run Scandisk to check the harddrive and it would run for
awhile then seem to sit for ever....I would cancel and rerun and
then it would be fine.

I have recently ran scandisk, defrag, regscan, etc. and everything seems fine. All in all several folders here and there became hidden and I tried to unhide them but the hidden button is grayed out.

System Stable:
It seems that no additional folders have become hidden since that day12/23. No virus was found and no other problem has occured. I don't know what made the folders permenately hidden.

Has anyone seen this happen? Any suggestions to unhide these folders?

 

Hello and Thank you,

I added the Ad-aware and RefUpdate files.
The run did the deep reg scan and found some
suspicious files:

Log files from Gator, WhenU,
DSSAgent key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\broderbund software\dss\
Gator key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\gator.com\
SaveNow key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\whenu\
SaveNow key:HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\wusn.1\
Web3000 key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\stashedgef
Web3000 key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\stashedgmg
DSSAgent key:Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs\C:\WINDOWS\BBStore\DSS\DSSAGENT.EXE

Ad-aware pretty much deleted all the unwanted files and
then initialized the following. Also, it went through all my
cookies and deleted a bunch of site counter cookies.

Initializing:Web3000,2,HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,2,software\microsoft\windows\currentversion,stashedgef,
Initializing:Web3000,2,HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,2,software\microsoft\windows\currentversion,stashedgmg,
InitializingSSAgent,2,HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,2,Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs,C:\WINDOWS\BBStore\DSS\DSSAGENT.EXE,

I hope this means I didn't have any spyware loaded.

Oh, here is the msinfo32 startup. I am running Windows Me.
Adaptec DirectCD c:\progra~1\adaptec\directcd\directcd.exe
AvconsoleEXE c:\program files\network associates\mcafee virusscan\avconsol.exe
CreateCD c:\progra~1\adaptec\easycd~1\createcd\createcd.exe -r
QuickTime Task c:\windows\system\qttask.exe
SystemTray systray.exe
TaskMonitor c:\windows\taskmon.exe
Vshwin32EXE c:\program files\network associates\mcafee virusscan\vshwin32.exe
Vshwin32EXE c:\program files\network associates\mcafee virusscan\vshwin32.exe
VsStatEXE c:\program files\network associates\mcafee virusscan\vsstat.exe /showwarning

Thanks for the links to the neat programs.
Mike

 

Hello,
Good news...
The hidden property on my personal folders can now be
changed. They are no longer grayed-out. Most were
converted to READ only from hidden ....

Your suggestions to run Ad-aware and remove
the WEB3000 seemed to make this possible.

I checked some webpages on how to remove Web3000
and took care the rest.

Ad-aware finds no suspicious files currently. (It does
occasionally remove some double-click cookies.)

All my folders-files have been changed to normal attributes...
(which means all my files are currently not read only,
not hidden, and not archived). I will have to see which
ones I will hide and make read-only later. Especially
my winsock.dll.....

Thanks again,
Mike