teccy.com

Windows PCs are funny things; each one has its own unique personality. My work PC, for example, wouldn’t show changes to the file system through Explorer unless I manually refreshed the window by pressing F5. This was particularly irritating when creating a new folder because while the folder was created with the name highlighted to allow me to rename it, I couldn’t see it! Refreshing the window displayed the folder but cancelled the rename operation, so I had to highlight the folder and select rename again and finish the job. It doesn’t sound much but when a two step task becomes a five step task for no good reason it makes me wonder why.

The cure for the problem is of course in the Registry and if your PC is afflicted with the same problem here’s how to fix it:

Start RegEdit and work through the tree until you reach ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Update’. In that folder there should be a Value called ‘UpdateMode’, if it’s not there, create a binary Value and give it that name. On my work PC the value of this Value (stay with me) was 1. I’m guessing this a polling interval or something similar. Change the value to 7 and close RegEdit. That’s it; you’re done. Make a change in Explorer that normally would need you to refresh by hand to see it and you should see the change immediately without having to do a thing.

Alternatively, save the text below as refreshfix.reg and double-click it, agree that you are sure you want to add the information to the Registry and you’re ready to go:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Update]

"UpdateMode"=dword:00000007