Folders pane does not update when folder added

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Sometimes I create a folder by unzipping or by copying/moving a folder from one place to another. In the new destination if I click on the parent folder in the left folders pane, I can see the new folder in the right pane in Windows Explorer. However, not until I open that folder does it actually appear in the left folder pane.

Any clues why or what I can do to make the left pane update like the right pane does? (And yes I’ve tried F5)

Thanks!!
Troy

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I never found a solution, I’m afraid, other than switching the drive on view, then back again.
Have you tried selecting the parent folder in the left pane before hitting F5?

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I just tried hitting the parent folder before F5, but to no avail.

What did you mean by “switching the drive on view, then back again”?

Thanks!!
Troy

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If it is a sub-folder on C-drive, I’m fairly certain selecting D-drive then re-selecting C-drive updated the view.
(Obviously no good if you only have one partition!)

I can’t immediately test my theory as I’m on an XP machine at the moment, which does not appear to suffer from this!
I’ll try and check out a couple of things later…

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Nope. I just tried that, but it had no effect.

Let me know if you think of anything else. Otherwise, thanks for trying!!
Troy

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Troy,
I’ve just tried this on a W2K installation and was amazed to find a new folder appeared instantaneously in the left hand pane when added!
This may have been fixed with SP3 – I’m afraid I didn’t run my own PC on W2K with SP3 added long enough to notice if there was a link.
What SP are you on?

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I’m on SP3. Sometimes it seems to matter how the folder is added/created.

For example, find a folder that has more than one sub folder in it.
Copy one folder inside the other folder. A plus sign appears in the left pane indicating there is a subfolder.
Press Control+Z to undo that. A box appears asking if you want to delete the folder. Click Yes. The plus sign remains in the left pane until you open that folder.

Thanks for checking!! Feel free to share any other thoughts!!
Troy

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I have a similar problem on Win2k SP3. Somethimes Explorer just won’t update (by itself or using the F5 key). I have to shut down Explorer and restart it to get it to update.

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I’m hereby reporting the same behavior when deleting folders as well.

No word from MS on this obvious bug?

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It’s a resource issue. If you have ever programmed in VB, you may have used a TreeView control. In fact, within VB you can quite easily build a mock Windows Explorer. There are a few issues though. First of all, Windows explorer ‘refreshes’ itself from time to time. Open two instances of Windows Explorer, go to the same folder or drive, and add a folder. It will show up in the other instance, though maybe not immediately. Also notice that the ‘order’ may be changed. New files may show up at the end, even if they should be sorted differently.

Refreshing Windows Explorer will fix sorting issues and missing/file folders from the right pane, but that is because it is just a ‘listbox’ of files/folders in a file/folder, so it simply has to rebuild it’s list.

The left pane, however, is a tree view, where each drive/folder is a node (or branch) on the tree. It’s not as simple as refreshing a listbox, more complex logic must be applied to rebuild the tree. That is why it does not refresh right away. The reason that it shows up on the left pane, when you open that folder from the right pane, is because whenever you arein a folder on the right pane, it is shown as the ‘open’ folder on the left pane. When it does this, it forces the logic routines to determine if the left pane has built a ‘node’ for that folder, and if it hasn’t, then it rebuilds that treeview.

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Thanks for the info!! I guess its just one more thing we have to grin and bear from MS.

Troy

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This problem continues in XP … And, yes, the only way I have found to force the new folder to show in the parent folder pane window is to open it (double-click) in the folders/files right-hand pane.

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