Solved hiberfil.sys and other .sys files not visible in File Explorer despite enabling view of them

Windows 11 Version 23H2 (OS build 22631.2861)
I have discovered that it I cannot use file explorer to view the hiberfil.sys, pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys files from with file explorer. I have switched on "show file extension" and "show hidden and system files". I even switched on Developer Mode, even though I am not a developer (retired). See the attachments: system settings.jpg and File Explorer C drive.jpg.
I can only see these files either through third party software OR by using the command dir /ah having changed the administrator command prompt to C:\
See attachment Command Prompt.jpg
This seems to me to be a bit excessive on the part of Microsoft, especially when the system settings specifically authorises the visibility of these files.
Is there another setting that I am unaware of?

Have you unchecked "Hide protected Operating System Files"?

Thank you sir! You are correct. I had completely forgotten the presence of this option. I thought that enabling viewing of system files and hidden files would be enough. Ah well! You live and learn.

With an nvme sd installed I assume that you have turned off fast startup since not needed with SSDs? If so then hiberfil.sys should disappear from the list anyway but can't help as to why you are not seeing these 3 files. Maybe someone else can help on that.

Actually the user Allan has sorted it. See his reply. I had fast startup turned off because I have windows 11 on a PCI-e4 WD NVME SSD, just about the fastest there is, but I have begun to think that boot up was rather slow, so I decided to re-enable fast startup to see if it made any difference, and YES it does. Startup is much quicker.

jameswesthead said:

Thank you sir! You are correct. I had completely forgotten the presence of this option. I thought that enabling viewing of system files and hidden files would be enough. Ah well! You live and learn.

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You're welcome. Glad it's all sorted out. Happy Holidays.

jameswesthead said:

so I decided to re-enable fast startup to see if it made any difference, and YES it does. Startup is much quicker.

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That's very interesting. I'll get my stop-watch out and give it a try on my HP machine, which has NVME SSD.
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Okay, I tried it and you are correct. I would not have believed it. I always thought that there was no advantage in having Fast Startup (FSU) 'On' with NVME SSDs since they were so fast that the startup time could not be improved by having FSU 'On'. Here are the results with my HP machine with NVME SSD: -

FSU 'Off': Time to Sign-in = 29.7 seconds, which includes splash screen "Protected by HP Sure Start" taking up about 5 seconds.
FSU 'On': Time to sign-in = 13.5 seconds, but I noticed that the splash screen "Protected by HP Sure Start" no longer displays when booting up with FSU 'On'.

I'll monitor how it goes from now on to see if FSU is reliable over the long term.

Two reasons I don't use fast startup and hibernate on an NvME drive is I don't want a large hiberfil.sys file on the drive that creates extra wear on it , however small, and the second reason is that I dual boot and fast startup is not recommended.

I used to dual boot and got into all sorts of trouble with fast start-up, which was the principal reason why I stopped using it. I no longer dual boot, and since the boot time is reduced by 50%, I decided to keep FSU switched on. A missing splash screen is interesting. That happened to me very recently, along with other irritations 1. unable to enter UEFI from within Windows using <shift> Restart - booting would just hang, 2. splash screen missing intermittently so couldn't get into UEFI 3. unable to enter UEFI using Settings->System -> Recovery -> Advanced Start-up - booting would just hang. This lot turned out to be because I had updated the Gigabyte Aorus bios from F35 to F36. Flashing it back to F35 fixed the problem. There were other mysterious things as well, but I suppose that they would only be of interest to Gigabyte Motherboard owners. Incidentally, I have Windows 11 on one 1Tb NVMe M.2 SSD and Documents etc on another 1Tb NVMe M.2 SSD. Even with FSU switched on and the resultant 13.9Gb hiberfil.sys sitting in C:\ ( my C drive has 790Gb free space., which amounts to 85% free.

Not a fan of "hibernate". I'm old school and even though modern systems have plenty of disk space, I just don't see any reason to use resources unnecessarily. Once in a while on a laptop I'll enable "sleep" on lid close, but for the most part I just set my hd and display to power down after a set period of time. At the end of the day I shut the system(s) down for the night.

First, my system is much happier ( ). Second, I've never - NEVER - had any problems that might be caused by enabling hibernation or sleep (and they happen, though probably not as frequently as they did years ago). As I said - old school LOL.

Fabler2 said:

Two reasons I don't use fast startup and hibernate on an NvME drive is I don't want a large hiberfil.sys file on the drive that creates extra wear on it

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Yesterday I switched FSU 'On' as an experiment. I switched it back 'Off' this morning but I still see Hiberfil.sys in the C: root folder. See photo. I expected Windows to delete the file after switching FSU 'Off'.
I believe Hiberfil.sys is no longer needed but why is it still there? It is taking up 2.36GB of disk space. I know Hiberfil.sys is a protected operating system file so is it okay for me to delete it (if I can)?

wiganken said:

Yesterday I switched FSU 'On' as an experiment. I switched it back 'Off' this morning but I still see Hiberfil.sys in the C: root folder. See photo. I expected Windows to delete the file after switching FSU 'Off'.
I believe Hiberfil.sys is no longer needed but why is it still there? It is taking up 2.36GB of disk space. I know Hiberfil.sys is a protected operating system file so is it okay for me to delete it (if I can)?

View attachment 82077

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If you don't use hibernate disable it via CMD (admin) with powercfg.exe /hibernate off. That will remove it and the fast startup ability. You can check it in the old power options,

That fixed it. Thank you.