DOS uses the hidden attribute to indicate that a file should not ordinarily be visible in directory listings. Unix doesn't have such a facility; it's up to individual programs (notably the shell) to decide what to display and what not to display. Normally, you won't have any DOS files that need to be hidden, so the best thing to do is to leave this option turned off.
Setting this option to
yes causes the server to map the hidden flag onto the executable-by-others bit (0001). This feature can produce a rather startling effect. Any Unix program that is executable by world seems to vanish when you look for it from a Windows client. If this option is not set, however, and a Windows user attempts to mark a file hidden on a Samba share, it will not work - Samba has no place to store the hidden attribute!
