Show hidden items in Windows Component Wizard in XP

The Windows Components Wizard lets you install or uninstall few selected features or components in Windows XP. You can remove or add these features any time using the Windows Components Wizard. But Windows XP hides some of the features to be displayed in the list of components in the Windows Components Wizard so that you cannot remove them. But you can unhide those features by editing a file. Here is how :

  1. Press the keyboard combination Windows logo key + R to bring up the Run dialog.
  2. Type notepad %windir%infsysoc.inf in the Run dialog and press Enter.

  3. This would open th file sysoc.inf in Notepad. Notice the highlighted hide in the lines under the [Components] section. This file has settings for one component per line. The components with hide will be hidden in the Windows Components Wizard. The components with missing hide will be displayed in the Windows Components Wizard.

  4. If you want to un-hide a component, just replace hide in its line with blank space and save the file. I removed hide from the first component which says Terminal Server. Lets see what shows up in the Windows Component Wizard.
  5. Open Control Panel → Add/Remove Programs. Then click on the on the Add/Remove Windows Components button in the left side toolbar to start the Windows Component Wizard. As you can see we have un-hidden a previously hidden entry :