Deep Structure Refresh of Window Shell Explorer

[mercadantelaura]

I have done a script that modify some binary data into Windows Registry.
Some of them immediately refresh and Auto-Update Shell Explorer, others i must close Windows Shell Explorer and open New istance of it to take effect because also pressing "F5" to force refresh, it don't take effect in order to reload explorer structure from registry that i have modified.

I think that in these case need a deep refresh of windows Shell Explorer after
registry change and this refresh is performed invoking Win32 API code    :-/

========================================================
                   ---- Simple Example ---
If I manually change this value in order to Disable Status Bar of
Windows Explorer, i must open new session of it to apply change

[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain]
"StatusBarOther"=dword:00000000


...but...


if i don't use KeyReg and i go with mouse in Menu-Bar and i click on "Disable Status Bar"
or i use ShortKey (in my language:  "ALT-V" --> "B" --> "ENTER" )
immediately windows take effect without closing explorer.

========================================================

I have readed on forum similar problem:
'?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>

but under my Win7 x64 Sp1 don't run .
There is some possibility to use AutoIT script using KeyReg to obtain the same design
an extra function that i call when i want Refresh all Structure of Explorer
after all my registry change with Seven 64 Bit Sp1?


Thanks

[mercadantelaura]

There is no member that have some suggestions to give me to do this ?
Please, Help me if you can or someone have some idea to solve my problem.

Thank you very much.

[Melba23]

mercadantelaura,

Please do not bump your own threads within 24 hours.

Remember this is not a 24/7 support forum - those who answer are only here because they like helping others and have some time to spare. You just have to wait until someone who knows something about your particular problem, and is willing to help, comes online. Be patient and someone will answer eventually.

M23

[TheSaint]

And if you look, you will see quite a few have viewed your topic, so it is getting plenty of attention.

So obviously not a common question.

[mercadantelaura]

TheSaint & Melba223 you have perfectly reason
Sorry very much for my impatience.  :-(

I hope that in forum there is someone that know something about and will help me.

[AdamUL]

Have a look at this >function.  I have updated it below.  
 

Func _Update_Explorer()
    Local $bOld = Opt("WinSearchChildren", True)
    Local $aWinListSHELLDLL_DefView = WinList("[CLASS:SHELLDLL_DefView]")
    For $i = 0 To $aWinListSHELLDLL_DefView[0][0]
        DllCall("user32.dll", "long", "SendMessage", "hwnd", $aWinListSHELLDLL_DefView[$i][1], "int", 0x111, "int", 28931, "int", 0)
    Next
    Opt("WinSearchChildren", $bOld)
EndFunc ;==>_Update_Explorer

 
 
Adam

[mercadantelaura]

Thank you ADAM for reply, but nothing to do.

Your script don't take effect.

Running my example "STATUSBAR" is always visible after change.

I see that your script refreshes desktop icons but don't refresh Windows Shell Explorer structure.

Infact if I want disable "STATUSBAR" of Shell Explorer i must Run script and i need to

close explorer session and open it again to take effect.

Instead, using option "StatusBar On-OFF" in the MenuBar of Windows Explorer

(NOT Internet Explorer but the shell explorer of Windows) the change are immediately updated without close session.

How internal command invoke Microsoft to do this ??

My O.S. is:  Win7 Sp1 64 Bit -- Theme Windows Classic (Not Aero) -- Logged as administrator

#include <Process.au3>
If _ProcessGetName(WinGetProcess("[active]"))<>"Explorer.exe" then
   msgbox(0, "", "Explorer Not Active", 1)
   Exit
Endif
$Key=RegRead("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main", "StatusBarOther")
If $Key = 1 Then
   RegWrite("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main", "StatusBarOther", "REG_DWORD", 0)
Else
   RegWrite("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main", "StatusBarOther", "REG_DWORD", 1)
EndIf
;    ##=======>   I have inserted here your script to REFRESH    <=============##
Local $bOld = Opt("WinSearchChildren", True)
Local $aWinListSHELLDLL_DefView = WinList("[CLASS:SHELLDLL_DefView]")
For $i = 0 To $aWinListSHELLDLL_DefView[0][0]
   DllCall("user32.dll", "long", "SendMessage", "hwnd", $aWinListSHELLDLL_DefView[$i][1], "int", 0x111, "int", 28931, "int", 0)
Next
Opt("WinSearchChildren", $bOld)

Edited September 4, 2013 by Melba23
Added code tags

[Melba23]

mercadantelaura,

When you post code please use Code tags - see here how to do it. Then you get a scrolling box and syntax colouring as you can see above now I have added the tags.

M23

[mercadantelaura]

OK,  i will do it in future.

Thanks for edit and correction of my previous post

[mercadantelaura]

AdamUL: I have proved to run your script also under Win7-32 Bit, but also under this operating system
it don't take effect in order to refresh explorer structure after key registry change.

Have you possibility to prove my script under your computer ?
 

[mercadantelaura]

Melba23 i have readed info on your link in order to post code on forum.

But what kind of program is used in the link ?? 

SciTE of AutoIT have a different GUI from picture in the link.also do same thing.

Thanks

[AdamUL]

I tired the script, and it did not work as expected.  I'm not sure what message to send to the Window to make it show the Status bar.  Here is a work around using ControlSend, that I was able to get to work.

#include <Process.au3>
If _ProcessGetName(WinGetProcess("[active]")) <> "Explorer.exe" Then
    MsgBox(0, "", "Explorer Not Active", 1)
    Exit
EndIf
ControlSend("[CLASS:CabinetWClass]", "", "[CLASS:DirectUIHWND; INSTANCE:3]", "!v")
ControlSend("[CLASS:CabinetWClass]", "", "[CLASS:DirectUIHWND; INSTANCE:3]", "b")

This also sets the registry key.  So you can read the key to see if the Status bar is show or not showing.  The same commands will hide it as well.    

 
Adam

[mercadantelaura]

Thanks AdamaUL.

Now i'm using ContrtrolSend too, but there are lots other key registry change that i modify that

unfortunately not have shortcut to use.

I hope that in future some member will discover solution to obtain Deep Structure refresh of explorer shell.

[mercadantelaura]

For example using key registry, i change dimension of left panel

(where is showed tree folder) and right panel (where is showed list of files/directory)

without changing dimension of window.

...Or disable left NavPane (now i'm using for this point ControlSend),

when was sufficient change a bit in registry from 1 to 0 in the middle of binary word  "ControlSizer" but need Structure deep Refresh

.. and more other personal registry change.

My hope never die.
In future maybe member that will write a code that permit deep Refresh.
I will wait.

[AdamUL]

Your welcome, sorry I couldn't help you more. Somewhere there is likely a Windows message that can be sent to the window to change it, but finding which message is the problem. Try searching MSDN, and see if you come up with something.  

From some testing, I noticed that changing registry settings does not affect the current Explorer window, but it does for a new Explorer window.  This is without having to restart the explorer.exe process.  As another workaround, you could change the setting in the registry, and then relaunch the explorer window to the same location.  This can be a hefty task depending on the location, as some folder are special in Windows.    

 

Adam

[careca]

Dont mean to be disrespectful, but how did you ran the code Adam posted?

Func _Update_Explorer()     
Local $bOld = Opt("WinSearchChildren", True)     
Local $aWinListSHELLDLL_DefView = WinList("[CLASS:SHELLDLL_DefView]")     
For $i = 0 To $aWinListSHELLDLL_DefView[0][0]         
DllCall("user32.dll", "long", "SendMessage", "hwnd", $aWinListSHELLDLL_DefView[$i][1], "int", 0x111, "int", 28931, "int", 0)     
Next     
Opt("WinSearchChildren", $bOld) 
EndFunc ;==>_Update_Explorer

Just that? did you do something to it, or just paste 'n run?

The reason i ask, is because as it is a function, if you don't 'point' to it, nothing happens, you know this right? just making sure...

[mercadantelaura]

To "Careca" =

I tested it using

Call ( "function" [, param1 [, param2 [, paramN]]] )

...and...

also directly put it in script (as i wrote in the beginning of post at the end of example of registry change),

 unfortunately without obtain deep refresh of explorer structure.

 

To "Melba23"

Sorry i have done a stupid question for post code, i'm not a great observer.
I have noted only now that the picture in your link is the shot of WEB forum Editor Toolbar
and not toolbar of a specific Editor Program.
Sorry for my carelessness.

 

There is no Microsoft programmer in this forum to help me?      :-;

Thanks at any rate to all members that have lost time to looking for solve my problem.

[Biatu]

looking for this too, need to reload icons. Yes, it does refresh icons, but making modifications like, desktop.ini, and +system attrib on folders....is not updated like an F5 key. Must be more messages were not sending.

Edit:

Sometimes F5 does not do it, you have to browse out of folder and back in, or restart explorer.
Some program installers do this perfectly, i remember times tring to browser quickly through folders and clicking the wrong one because of a refresh. reset the icons, and the positions. (Without restarting Exp)

Edited November 24, 2013 by Biatu

[DigitalFacade82]

Sorry for replying in an old thread, I just thought that it was relevant and it wasn't worth me starting a new thread. I have Win7 x64 and have had the same experiences as the OP. I wanted a *true* refresh of explorer though....not the solutions that I had seen on AutoIT so far...as most of them used just processclose.....which the OP knows doesn't work for his situation.
What i have found out is a few things:

An example like this:

Run("explorer.exe",Call(ProcessClose("explorer.exe")))

Doesn't always work on Windows 7 x64? Anymore than say 4 or 5 explorer windows open and only the first one or two are refreshed...not all of them. 
advancing further with this to something like:

Do
Run("explorer.exe",Call(ProcessClose("explorer.exe")))
Until not ProcessExists("explorer.exe")
EnvUpdate()
Run("Explorer.exe")
Next

*sometimes works* effectively...but not always? (Why do computers *sometimes* choose to do things different? its like they have a mind of their own). However this most of the time ended up like taskkill command and so someone who had maybe 20 explorer windows open (for what ever reason) would soon find that they were back to desktop.

Note: Say you have something like gImageX open and WIM file mounted. Then running this command is catastrophic! You close the mounted WIM instantly = not cool, lucky I had a program to diff my old mounting point and the new mounted WIM and I could push the work I created from one (my old mount point) to the new mounted WIM. Again so long as at least one explorer window running always then gImageX won't shut the open mount point.

In the end with my situation I resorted to taskkill....which almost always results in the taskbar dead, new explorer windows appearing (but without the taskbar)...however it worked for the process I wanted to do (hint I was not satisfied with the Unlockers solution of would I like to delete the file next reboot option) anyway, from here I realised that taskkill IS effective, but not suitable for the reasons mentioned. However IF I selectively taskkill using PID for all explorer Windows but one at a time (so long as at least one explorer window is always open) then I don't have the problem of taskbar disappearing :-)

My solution was to generate an array of open explorer windows by name or address. From the generated array I could prepare to create a new identical explorer window, kill the existing one and then fire off a new one.
Loop through the array taskkilling each one and generating it's "clone" from the array.

This worked! So long as I put a sleep command of at least 500 between each array record then I would always be left with at least one explorer window open before the next task was fired off. I used runwait for the taskkill command so the explorer from the array could be prepared to generate (not generated at the time or else taskkill would kill it) 500 was smallest amount of time that was effective.
This enabled each explorer window to be refreshed 100% just like rebooting but with out the pain in the arse of loosing all the current open Windows explorer processes. Completely collapsing the Win Explorer is considered a bad solution for me,
I could if I wanted to also segregate an explorer PID to not get updated at all should I want to in the future.

I will post my script for you later if you like. Its on my other PC.