[C#] Windows Explorer Refresh

[ProChefChad]

I've made a simple C# application that changes a registry value. After it has changed the value, I want it to tell Windows to refresh the explorer so that the change takes effect without me having to manually refresh explorer. Can anyone suggest how to properly tell Windows to refresh the explorer? If possible, can you provide a code sample? Thanks.

[Wilhelmus]

Do you need to refresh icons or what?

If it's icons, then use SHChangeNotify() function.

pinvoke.net - SHChangeNotify.

Contains signature for function and enums (HChangeNotifyEventID, HChangeNotifyFlags).

Then you need to execute:

SHChangeNotify(HChangeNotifyEventID.SHCNE_ASSOCCHANGED, HChangeNotifyFlags.SHCNF_IDLIST, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);

[ProChefChad]

Thanks for the info. I have already read about SHChangeNotify() before while searching for answers before posting. To answer your question, I need to referesh icons/folders (essentially, I need to referesh any open explorer windows completely). My main problem is that I don't know what namespaces/classes to import into the project so I can use SHChangeNotify. Any thoughts?

[gigapixels Veteran]

If you check the pinvoke.net link he posted, it's just a DllImport statement and the function should be available after that.

[Wilhelmus]

Yep.

(And import System.Runtime.InteropServices so you can use DllImports)

[ProChefChad]

Thanks for all the help. It now works almost everytime, but sometimes the explorer window(s) still doesn't refresh. I'm now using these 3 SHChangeNotify calls. The last one seemed to help more than the others, but when I took the others away, nothing happened. Out of curiousity, is there any other way to refresh the explorer? I keep reading about invalidating the desktop or something to that extent? Thanks.

//Alert the system of the change --> Explorer Refresh
SHChangeNotify(HChangeNotifyEventID.SHCNE_ALLEVENTS, HChangeNotifyFlags.SHCNF_DWORD, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);
SHChangeNotify(HChangeNotifyEventID.SHCNE_ASSOCCHANGED, HChangeNotifyFlags.SHCNF_IDLIST, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);
SHChangeNotify(HChangeNotifyEventID.SHCNE_UPDATEDIR, HChangeNotifyFlags.SHCNF_IDLIST, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);