Careful: the Linux permissions of these files are stored in attributes of the files, and many tools don't preserve them properly. You'll likely lose access to files if you try this.
I recall there were issues if you tried to modify those files in Windows. Maybe they've fixed that in recent updates, but my impression was that while I could see the files, I shouldn't be touching them.
Yes. Updates to those files didn't seem to be reflected in bash until I'd closed and reopened the terminal.