Windows 7 - Portable hard drive shows hidden files (prefixed with ".")

My portable hard drive is showing all the hidden files and folders on it (the ones prefixed with ".", but not the System Information folder, interestingly). I don't have this trouble with any other drives, or elsewhere on my computer, so it seems somehow to be associated with this specific drive.

Of course I check to make sure that "Show hidden files and folders" is turned off.

Has the drive ever been connected to a Mac?

It certainly has. I use it on a Mac running MacFUSE with the NTFS-3G pref pane so it can read NTFS formatted drives. Since you mentioned this, I've looked but can't find any documentation for the NTFS-3G pref pane that would indicate what settings might be causing this. I tried disabling the cache for the drive (no idea if that was right or not) but it didn't seem to change anything.

I'll take this up on a Mac forum though since it seems to be a Mac issue.

We have two Macs in my company, and anytime they access an external drive or server share, they leave behind these random files with . as the first character in the filename.

That's apparently the problem. You guys just put up with it, then?

Unfortunately, yes. Anytime my graphic designer accesses any of these resources, the files are recreated.