Just arriving here, and joined up, because I was able to get some good answers fast here, before I even showed up. I am an amateur hardware hack, and need all the help I can get!
thanks to the folks who responded to this thread:
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread100324.html&highlight=cannot+view+hidden+folders%3F
especially look_hd, who contributed a bit of code, which restored my hidden folders to my view. I believe I was hit by a drive-by trojan, and am taking steps to eradicate it, but the hiddenfilesolver.vbs script enabled me to get to my application data folder. The winrar suggestion was also helpful.
Kudos to Dani and the whole forum!!!