I was searching journals on a research topic. I eventually got to some old exotic site containing a zip file which according to the description contained multiple documents. However when I unzipped it with file explorer the folder was empty. I tried multiple times but everytime I got zero files. I first thought Windows Defender was automatically quarantining the files but there were no such logs.
After a few attempts I gave up and booted up my Ubuntu desktop. When I downloaded the same zip there I realized what was happening. The files inside the zip were created decades ago and they were using an archaic encoding. Their names contained special characters not permitted in Windows. Thanks to Linux's relaxed rules they were visible on Ubuntu. When I went back to Windows and used a 3rd party file manager I could see and even open the files just fine.
This means that Windows does not automatically remove invalid files, but file explorer is set in a way that does not display them. Is there a registry key or other switch that I can flip so that File Explorer does display such files?
