[Help]DLL files super invisible mode?

Hello everyone!

So yesterday my friend downloaded some of dll files to run a game but after downloading all those dll files the game still wont run. She decided to uninstall the game and delete those dll files but all the dll files she downloaded are become invisible. That time she begun freaking out, she googled everything to remove those dll but she cant find any answer. She download the one of those .dll again, extracted it in her desktop and when she copy-pasted it on the location which the .dll located a message pop-up says if she will overwrite it. She sent me some screenshots provided so you guys can see it and hope it will fix her problem

This is where she copy-pasted the .dll but you clearly see its not there, I already arranged that by names. The dll name is zlib1.dll


And when she try copy-pasting the .dll with a new. Its clear that the dll is invisible I never encountered this problem.


Note: I already go to folder options-> tick the "Show hidden files,folders, and drivers". See screenshot


I tried my luck searching for solutions in google but I cant find a single one. I hope someone can fix this problem.

NoteToMods: If this is not the correct section please don't delete my thread.

In the same folder options dialog, there is another option called "Hide system protected files", make sure you untick that option. I'm not sure which files it hides exactly, but this is for sure a possible cause of explorer hiding files in system32 folder.

Alejandro85 said:

In the same folder options dialog, there is another option called "Hide system protected files", make sure you untick that option. I'm not sure which files it hides exactly, but this is for sure a possible cause of explorer hiding files in system32 folder.

You mean the "Hide protected operating system files?". Its already unticked you can see it on the 3rd screenshot. Is there any tools/application to delete those .dll files?

Yes, that checkbox, ok, discarded.

You have a 64 bits OS right? Is that program you're talking about, a 32 or 64 bits? I see you're using Teracopy to move the files, is it 32 or 64 bits?

If there is 32 bits software in a 64 bits system, it's possible that a file virtualization taking place. So, look in SysWOW64 instead of System32, my next bet is that you'll find your files there.

Alejandro85 said:

Yes, that checkbox, ok, discarded.

You have a 64 bits OS right? Is that program you're talking about, a 32 or 64 bits? I see you're using Teracopy to move the files, is it 32 or 64 bits?

If there is 32 bits software in a 64 bits system, it's possible that a file virtualization taking place. So, look in SysWOW64 instead of System32, my next bet is that you'll find your files there.

I found the .dlls! Wow thanks man!

Yes, Im using 64bits OS. I'm a little bit confused what happen. If I put a 64bit file into System32 folder, it will directly transfer into SysWOW64?

Thanks again man!

My supposition is that you used a 32 bits program (Teracopy) to perform the copy itself, and it isn't aware of 64 bits systems.

On x64 Windows, there are 2 sets of "system" folders, System32 for x64 and SysWOW64 for x86 (yes, contrary to common sense).The thing is, for keeping compatibility with 32 bits software, when a program request access to the System32 folder, Windows "lies" to the program and secretly returns the SysWOW64 folder instead, so that it believes that is accessing c:\windows\system32 (which in fact contains 64 bits dlls) but in fact, it's using c:\windows\syswow64 (that actually contains 32 bits dlls).

When you instructed Teracopy to copy files into system32, Windows redirected that to syswow64 instead, but telling Teracopy that the files were written to system32. That's why Teracopy reported success, but you can't see them in system32, but they're thrown into syswow64.

Read this for more info about this compatibility redirection: File System Redirector (Windows)

To actually get the correct behavior, you have two choices:
Use a 64 bits tool instead, so that this redirection does not needs to happen.
Or use a 32 bits program that is actually aware of 64 bits systems, that is designed to prevent that redirection happening by default. Teracopy has obviously a bug in that particular case.