Folders Not Showing In Internet Explorer 10 Protected Mode

  • Thread starter Thread starter HossyMatch
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HossyMatch

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Ok, this question has been asked around many corners of the Internet and these forums and I haven't found a "real" answer so I'm asking it again and hopefully seeking a final resolution to the problem.

Symptoms

  • When "Protected Mode" is turned On, users are unable to view some folders in the file upload dialog that they can normally view (e.g. under Documents, Pictures, etc.).
  • When viewing the same folders in Explorer running as the same user as the Internet Explorer instance, the missing folders are viewable.
  • Launching Internet Explorer "as an administrator" allows the user to view the missing folders (but this is not recommended due to security concerns).

Workarounds

So far, the workaround that I found was to either run some crazy tool from BleepingComputer called Unhide that resets everything on your system -- this is the sledge hammer-to-thumbtack approach. Another one was to go into Organize > Folder and search options > View and uncheck the hide options and select the show radio option. The last one was to search for the folder in the file upload dialog, right-click the folder, and uncheck Hidden.

None of these, IMHO, are valid solutions to the real problem which is that something is special about this folder that is causing IE in Protected Mode to treat the file as Hidden.

Thoughts

The last "workaround" seems to indicate that the "hidden" file attribute is set for the file, but this doesn't appear to be true if you view the file outside of Protected Mode security. If you right-click the folder within Explorer or you run ATTRIB, the file attributes appear normal.

What I'm thinking is that there is an extended attribute associated with this file that is not normally viewable in the file properties dialog. Similar to the "temporary" file flag that gets set with some files that causes DFSR to not replicate them. However, when I look at the File Attributes with fsutil, both folders (one that is shown and one that isn't shown under Protected Mode) are 0x10 (which is simply DIRECTORY). I also verified the same with PowerShell looking at the Attributes property of the directory (System.IO.FileAttributes object): the value__ is 16 which is 0x10 (DIRECTORY).

So, it seems that the process of displaying folders (and possibly files) in either Protected Mode or the common dialog for file selection uses something other than the file attributes when determining what is displayed and not displayed.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated.


System info:

  • Internet Explorer 10.0.9200.16635; Update Versions: 10.0.7 (KB2846071)
  • Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 (6.1.7601) 64-bit
  • 4 GB RAM
  • Intel Core2 Duo T8100

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