Windows Explorer in Win8 Not Refreshing Automatically Without "F5"

AWS

Staff member
Jan 10, 2007
Florida
I've been having this problem for some time and finally looked into it this evening. I have a folder that I often write files too that never refreshes automatically without a manual refresh (&quotF5&quot). I had applied a fix to my XP computers
at work a long time ago to help with DFS folders not refreshing and I found that this helped my problem in Win8. Here is the setup under which it occurred:
  • Windows 8 64bit Enterprise
  • The Downloads shell folder is redirected to a local hard drive called
    G: at G:Downloads. Note that G: is not a network drive - it is a local drive. And if it matters, G: is a mechanical hard drive (C: is a SSD).
  • Open the Downloads folder on monitor 2.
  • Start Notepad++ (third party text editor) on monitor 1 and create a file called
    test1.txt at G:Downloads.
  • Even after waiting for 2 minutes, the new file test1.txt does not appear in the Downloads folder. I also re-sort the files by clicking on
    Date Modified twice and the new file still does not appear.
  • Once I hit F5, the new file appears as expected in the
    Downloads
    folder.
I applied the workaround indicated in [URL="
kb823291 by creating a new DWORD value called NoSimpleNetIDList in a new key at
HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer. Once I applied this workaround, new files appear automatically.
I don't know what the side effects of this are in Windows 8, but if anyone knows, please let me know.

It does appear though that this is a bug. I didn't see a category for Windows 8 bug reports on connect.microsoft.com and so I have not reported this there (I only saw a category for Win8 embedded).
If anyone has any other information about this, please let me know. Hopefully this helps anyone else who may be experiencing this problem.

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