Need to refresh folders in Win7?

[charles]

I find that changes to documents in a Windows 7 folder don't show up until
I refresh the folder (or leave and return, which does the same thing). This
is true for deleting files and creating new folders at least. Can Windows 7
be that much worse than XP or even Vista? Or is there some switch I don't
know about? Or maybe it's a bug?

Anybody else experience this? Everybody else?

Thanks for any info in advance.

- charles

 

[SC Tom]

I find that changes to documents in a Windows 7 folder don't show up until
I refresh the folder (or leave and return, which does the same thing). This
is true for deleting files and creating new folders at least. Can Windows 7
be that much worse than XP or even Vista? Or is there some switch I don't
know about? Or maybe it's a bug?

Anybody else experience this? Everybody else?

Thanks for any info in advance.

- charles

This was the most helpful reply in this thread:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...-refresh/249f4794-13c8-4fc5-939c-b3d1fe6433fb


"I've read this thread to the end and I've tried all the solutions posted... obviously to no avail.
The bug repeats itself, not randomly but constantly, in any situation, folders, libraries - sorted by name or by
whatever.
I then tried something different, which instead WORKED , and here it is.

1) I backed up the registry.
2) Searched for occurrences of the word refresh and found this key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{BDEADE7F-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\Instance
which contains three subkeys. One of them, curiously enough, is DontRefresh and it has a value of 1 (turned ON)
3) I then changed the value to 0 (turned OFF) and hit F5 to refresh and save the now changed registry.

Guess what? Now, everything (moving, deleting, copying) works and even the Trash Bin refreshes immediately.
I will keep you posted in the next few days to tell you whether the fix still works."

Hopefully it will work for you, too.

 

[Nil]

I find that changes to documents in a Windows 7 folder don't show
up until I refresh the folder (or leave and return, which does the
same thing). This is true for deleting files and creating new
folders at least. Can Windows 7 be that much worse than XP or even
Vista? Or is there some switch I don't know about? Or maybe it's a
bug?

Anybody else experience this? Everybody else?

I've noticed that, too. It doesn't seem to happen all the time. I don't
know of a cure. I've just gotten used to hitting F5 a lot when I'm
using Windows Explorer.

 

[Stan Brown]

I find that changes to documents in a Windows 7 folder don't show up until
I refresh the folder (or leave and return, which does the same thing). This
is true for deleting files and creating new folders at least. Can Windows 7
be that much worse than XP or even Vista? Or is there some switch I don't
know about? Or maybe it's a bug?

Anybody else experience this?

On the contrary, I have found Windows 7 much better than Windows XP
at auto-refreshing local folders. With XP, when Some external
program created a new file, the file would show up at the end of the
list, and if I wanted it in sorted order I would have to press F5.
With Windows 7, a new file created by an external program shows up in
its proper place within the sorted list.

Is this a local folder or perhaps a network folder?

If it's a local folder, then I am very much surprised to hear that it
is different with you. Can you detail the exact steps involved in,
say, deleting a file or creating a new folder when Windows 7 doesn't
show it?

 

[charles]

Bingo! This did the trick. Thanks so much.

Instead of searching for "refresh" I searched for "dontrefresh" which I
think narrowed things down. In any case, the problem is solved.

thanks again,'
- charles

 

[charles]

See SC Tom's response. It did the trick. Good luck with fixing it.

- charles

 

[Char Jackson]

See SC Tom's response. It did the trick. Good luck with fixing it.

I wonder why some systems have that Registry key and others, (all 3 of
mine, for example), don't. I'm not seeing the 'refresh' issue, but if
it develops I hope the Registry key to fix it comes along at the same
time.

 

[SC Tom]

You're welcome! Glad it worked for you.

 

[SC Tom]

I wonder why some systems have that Registry key and others, (all 3 of
mine, for example), don't. I'm not seeing the 'refresh' issue, but if
it develops I hope the Registry key to fix it comes along at the same
time.

I don't know. Both my Win7 Home Premium and my XP SP3 Home have that same key.

 

[Miles]

* SC Tom wrote, On 07-Jan-12 15:37:

This was the most helpful reply in this thread:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...-refresh/249f4794-13c8-4fc5-939c-b3d1fe6433fb


"I've read this thread to the end and I've tried all the solutions posted... obviously to no avail.
The bug repeats itself, not randomly but constantly, in any situation, folders, libraries - sorted by name or by
whatever.
I then tried something different, which instead WORKED , and here it is.

1) I backed up the registry.
2) Searched for occurrences of the word refresh and found this key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{BDEADE7F-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\Instance
which contains three subkeys. One of them, curiously enough, is DontRefresh and it has a value of 1 (turned ON)
3) I then changed the value to 0 (turned OFF) and hit F5 to refresh and save the now changed registry.

Guess what? Now, everything (moving, deleting, copying) works and even the Trash Bin refreshes immediately.
I will keep you posted in the next few days to tell you whether the fix still works."

Hopefully it will work for you, too.

Searched the reg until all the power in the grid was used. Searched
for dontrefresh and refresh, and it wasn't found. And I have the same
problem that has been driving me up the walls. Could it relate to I'm
using win7 Pro 64?
Miles

 

[Miles]

* Miles wrote, On 08-Jan-12 14:37:

* SC Tom wrote, On 07-Jan-12 15:37:

Searched the reg until all the power in the grid was used. Searched
for dontrefresh and refresh, and it wasn't found. And I have the same
problem that has been driving me up the walls. Could it relate to I'm
using win7 Pro 64?
Miles

And for some strange reason the change is immediately seen without
refreshing. Perhaps I was thinking of Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird
folders which are frequently changed; so will watch for that.

 

[SC Tom]

I wonder why some systems have that Registry key and others, (all 3 of
mine, for example), don't. I'm not seeing the 'refresh' issue, but if
it develops I hope the Registry key to fix it comes along at the same
time.

To quote from page 4 of the forum post link:

"I also had this issue - and this thread did provide me with the answer (the DontRefresh regkey set to 1 instead of 0)
However some things to note:
If you are using Windows 7 64 bit your key for this will live in the Wow6432Node - THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT otherwise you
will not find this key to be able to change it.
NON-64 BIT MACHINES: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{BDEADE7F-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\Instance\
64 BIT MACHINES: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{BDEADE7F-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\Instance
Also - some users report that this issue RETURNS INTERMITTENTLY. I also had this issue. I noticed that EACH TIME I PUT
A MS INSTALLER CD (I've seen it with Visio 2003 and Office Enterprise 2007) this flag of DoNotRefresh GETS RESET BACK TO
1!!! So you must CHANGE IT BACK 0 AGAIN, log off and log back on - and the folder refresh issue is resolved again.
I hope this helps anyone else with this issue - it took good part of 4-5 hours to resolve for me."

So I guess there is a difference between 32-bit and 64-bit as to where that key resides.

 

[Char Jackson]

To quote from page 4 of the forum post link:

"I also had this issue - and this thread did provide me with the answer (the DontRefresh regkey set to 1 instead of 0)
However some things to note:
If you are using Windows 7 64 bit your key for this will live in the Wow6432Node - THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT otherwise you
will not find this key to be able to change it.
NON-64 BIT MACHINES: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{BDEADE7F-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\Instance\
64 BIT MACHINES: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{BDEADE7F-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\Instance
Also - some users report that this issue RETURNS INTERMITTENTLY. I also had this issue. I noticed that EACH TIME I PUT
A MS INSTALLER CD (I've seen it with Visio 2003 and Office Enterprise 2007) this flag of DoNotRefresh GETS RESET BACK TO
1!!! So you must CHANGE IT BACK 0 AGAIN, log off and log back on - and the folder refresh issue is resolved again.
I hope this helps anyone else with this issue - it took good part of 4-5 hours to resolve for me."

So I guess there is a difference between 32-bit and 64-bit as to where that key resides.

Thanks, Tom. I searched the entire Registry on my Win 7 systems (one
Ultimate and two Home Premium) without finding any instance of
"dontrefresh", but I did find it on my XP Pro SP3 system. Thanks for
the heads up.

 

[SC Tom]

Thanks, Tom. I searched the entire Registry on my Win 7 systems (one
Ultimate and two Home Premium) without finding any instance of
"dontrefresh", but I did find it on my XP Pro SP3 system. Thanks for
the heads up.

Not a problem. Are you having the refresh problem on your Win7 systems? I don't recall changing my value to "0", but it
is, and I don't have the problem. If I paste a file into another folder, it goes right where it's supposed to go,
alphabetically/numerically (depending on the file name). I don't recall ever having that problem, so something some time
ago created that registry item (or I did so long ago that I've forgotten doing it (which may not have been ALL that long
ago, IYKWIM )).

 

[Char Jackson]

Not a problem. Are you having the refresh problem on your Win7 systems? I don't recall changing my value to "0", but it
is, and I don't have the problem. If I paste a file into another folder, it goes right where it's supposed to go,
alphabetically/numerically (depending on the file name). I don't recall ever having that problem, so something some time
ago created that registry item (or I did so long ago that I've forgotten doing it (which may not have been ALL that long
ago, IYKWIM )).

Yes, I do KWYM. No, I'm not having the refresh problem on any of
the systems around me, AFAIK. I just thought it was odd that my Win 7
systems don't have that key, but my XP SP3 system does. I'm not sure
where it came from.

 

[Lior]

Windows 7 x64 users - solution for you

This is for Windows 7 x64 users:

if you didn't find the Donrefresh registry key , just do the following steps:

1. Click on the following registry Key (attached in the Dontrefresh.Zip) .

3. Go to Task manager - end Explorer.exe process

4. Relaunch Explorer.exe.

Auto-refresh should work in any Folder / Desktop.


Hope it will help you - helped me ...

 

[bremaria]

Solution for my similar problem

I had a folder that would not refresh automatically. It turns out, that when I used a shortcut to the folder it would do this, but if I went straight to it in windows explorer it didn't do it. The shortcut referenced a different path, but somehow got there:

I have a domain user account: username.domainname and a computer account: username

the shortcut refered to the c:\users\username\Documents... when it should have referred to:

c:\users\username.domainname\Documents...

The short of it: if you are using a shortcut to the folder with a refresh issue, try going directly and/or creating a new shortcut