Refresh Windows Explorer in Win7

Question

My program sets \"HKCU\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\Advanced\" value \"Hidden\". Hovewer I\'m not able to refresh the e

Answer 1

With Windows 10 having changed the name of the Explorer window:

if ((itemName == "Windows Explorer") || (itemName == "File Explorer")) {
    itemType.InvokeMember("Refresh", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, item, null);
}

Answer 2

I figured out a way to check if the windows was a Windows Explorer window, and don't have enough of a rep to add a comment so thought I'd submit it as an answer to help you out because this question helped me out.

        // based on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2488727/refresh-windows-explorer-in-win7
        Guid CLSID_ShellApplication = new Guid("13709620-C279-11CE-A49E-444553540000");
        Type shellApplicationType = Type.GetTypeFromCLSID(CLSID_ShellApplication, true);

        object shellApplication = Activator.CreateInstance(shellApplicationType);
        object windows = shellApplicationType.InvokeMember("Windows", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, shellApplication, new object[] { });

        Type windowsType = windows.GetType();
        object count = windowsType.InvokeMember("Count", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, windows, null);
        for (int i = 0; i < (int)count; i++)
        {
            object item = windowsType.InvokeMember("Item", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, windows, new object[] { i });
            Type itemType = item.GetType();

            // only refresh windows explorers
            string itemName = (string)itemType.InvokeMember("Name", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, item, null);
            if (itemName == "Windows Explorer")
            {
                itemType.InvokeMember("Refresh", System.Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, item, null);
            }
        }

Answer 3

I don't know about Open/Save dialogs, but you can get a list of open explorer windows with COM automation, the Shell.Application object has a collection of windows, or CoCreate IID_IShellWindows directly, each window in the list has a refresh method.

WSH/JScript:

for(var sw=new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application").Windows(),i=0;i<sw.Count; ++i)
   sw.Item(i).Refresh();

I don't know about C#, but here are examples dealing with shell windows in WSH/JScript and c++

Answer 4

When you install an application that registers a file type, Explorer windows often refresh to indicate the new association - could you spy on the API calls that an installer is making to see how it refreshes the window?