How does Windows File Explorer automaticaly refresh itself?

Question

Does it run in a loop polling the contents? (Highly unlikely and inefficient.)

Or is it done with some event trigger?

In fact, what I am really wondering is how does Windows Explorer refresh itself when it shows the contents of another computer over a network?

How does the computer (or the OS) with the content notify the computer with the Explorer that its content has changed? If there is a mechanism to notify, what is the protocol? RPC?

Thanks

Thushan

Answer 1

See this previous question:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/627068/how-does-filesystemwatcher-work-on-another-computers-directory

It appears to be based on the ReadDirectoryChangesW API function.

Edit: There is a Microsoft article detailing another way to do it, but the documentation for the specific functions imply that it might not work on a remote computer.

Answer 2

is this just out of curiosity or are you looking to do the same type of thing for your application?

if you just need to be notified of changes to folders in normal user scenarios consider SHChangeNotifyRegister. if you're just curious or need a lower level hook, nevermind. :)

~jewels