This affects .shb, .url, .lnk, .pif, .scf, and .shs.

It affects quite a few others too. It's not a bug. It's deliberate on
Microsoft's part. I found this out by accident - on another machine I
had text files with extensions for the months of the year - .jan, .feb,
..mar, etc. When I transferred them over to this machine, I found that
the .mar extension was not showing up. I then created files with all
possible three-or-fewer-letter extensions, and found a dozen or more
that were super-hidden like that.

It turns out I would have never come across this if I didn't have Access
on my system. The install program creates more super-hidden file
extensions and .mar is one of them.

Furthermore, the operating system will re-super-hide these extensions
every now and then. Keep checking the registry for NeverShowExt. It
will return. Sometimes. Probably with every bug-fix and security update
they put out.

BTW, some of these extensions are executable. .lnk for example, is a
shortcut. It can be its own target and can contain the entry point for
its target (itself). .scf and .shs are also very dangerous. One of
them I believe is a "scrap object" and can contain anything. So, just
create a virus, name it clickme.txt.lnk and make it point to itself with
the right entry point. The nerds, who have set their computers to show
all extensions for JUST THIS REASON, will see clickme.txt, which is a
safe-to-click file. It will call notepad. (If it's too big, Notepad
will offer Wordpad, and nerds know to say no). Nonetheless, the nerds
get hozed by the virus, which if clever enough, uses the notepad icon
and even runs notepad in the foreground.

I have run into only one supernerd - somebody who knew this before I
told them. She was a young (and very pretty) health care worker who
happened to work for google in a prior life. I myself am no supernerd;
I just hit this by accident by doing something odd.

BTW, you're welcome.

Jose
PS - have I mentioned SONY's rootkit?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?si...16223&from=rss
These companies are EVIL.
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