Sometimes Windows Explorer goes lazy (Bug reports)

by acaballero , Saturday, July 14, 2012, 06:36 (4516 days ago) @ Marsha Adams

I just downloaded the trial version. It is a neat idea but does not seem to work all the time.
The screen shot shows that 5 icons were changed as I wanted them to, but at least three of the icons I tried to change did not change but instead ended up with a picture of the folder INSIDE the folder and not placed where I wanted it which was the folder image itself. I think I did everything the same...why doesn't it work all the time????

Just tried to insert a screen shot but it doesn't work in your email either.

Oh, then you're also victim of Windows Explorer's lazy times.

You see: even I have experience waiting times for folders to be set. And in my case, it comes when I assign an icon to a folder that:

• Is somewhere inside a tree where an NTFS junction is a parent folder.
  
• Is in a really deep level of a folder tree
  
• Is in an external device -like a USB disk- with millions of small files

The folder is going to be refreshed when Explorer's filesystem listeners get to it. I can't find a way to force Explorer to do it immediately because there isn't seem to be a Windows API call to tell Explorer to refresh a single icon in the filesystem.

Sometimes, you can "force" Explorer to refresh the icon by renaming the folder -like adding a number to it- and then renaming it back, or copying some file inside and then removing it.

Now, there's a really nasty way to force explorer to rebuild the icon cache, but I wouldn't recommend it unless really neccesary. If you feel the urge, then check out any of the next links:

http://www.trishtech.com/winxp/rebuild_icon_cache_in_windows_xp.php

http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/how-to-rebuild-the-icon-cache-in-windows-vista/

http://www.trishtech.com/win7/rebuild_icons_cache_in_windows_7.php

Please let me know if this was helpful.

Tags:
windows, explorer, rebuild, icon, cache, purge