Windows hides certain files and folders by default. it's part of the whole treat you like an idiot so you wont break something. If you open up windows Explorer, goto the Tools menu, Select Folder options, goto the View tab. Select Show hidden Files and Folders, Untick Hide file extensioons for known file type (I wanna know that it's definately a txt document and not an EXE with the icon changed!!), Untick Hide protects operating system files (recommended).
Can you see the system32 folder now? Pretty sure you'd be having major issues if it had been deleted/removed.