Starting from Build 23481, a number of legacy folder options have been removed from the Explorer user interface, the most controversial removal being the "Hide protected operating system files" option. As the blog post says, the settings can still be accessed via registry keys, however this is not officially documented.
If all you want is to show protected system files:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced into the bar at the top.ShowSuperHidden value and double click it.To edit these values, open the Registry editor (regedit), paste HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
into the box at the top and press Enter to be taken directly to the correct registry key.
| Option | Name | Off value | On value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Always show icons, never thumbnails | IconsOnly | 0 | 1 |
| Display file icon on thumbnails | ShowTypeOverlay | 0 | 1 |
| Display file size information on folder tips | FolderContentsInfoTip | 0 | 1 |
| Hide folder merge conflicts | HideMergeConflcits | 0 | 1 |
| Hide protected operating system files | ShowSuperHidden | 1 | 0 |
| Show drive letters | See below | 2 | 0 |
| Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color | ShowEncryptCompressedColor | 0 | 1 |
| Show popup description for Folder and Desktop items | ShowInfoTip | 0 | 1 |
| Use sharing wizard | SharingWizardOn | 0 | 1 |
Note that this option is found in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer unlike the others.
It may not be present, in which case you can right click in the window and create a new DWORD value.
There are also additional values that can't be changed via Folder Options, even with previous versions of Windows:
| Value | Effect |
|---|---|
| 0 or not present | Show after drive label |
| 1 | Show after drive label, before on network drives |
| 2 | Off |
| 4 | Show before drive labels |