Microsoft Explorer Constant Refreshing Within Network Places

[Craig.Keegan]

I would appreciate your assistance to establish a solution or work around for this obvious problem within Windows XP.


Problem Synopsis
----------------
Windows XP Windows Explorer refreshes all clients after a file or directory alteration within a Network Place, even though these clients are not monitoring that specific folder at the time.


Problem History
---------------
I have checked the Internet, Logged and paid for a call with Microsoft and received no result.

The implications of this issue are that it can take up to 50 seconds to change folders within Windows Explorer. This calculated out for 200 staff, 8 hours a day, it is very expensive for an organisation.

It has been suggested that I e-mail WishList@Microsoft.com. I find this silly as this is an obvious bug and degradation to Windows XP. This does not occur under Windows 2000 Professional.

I have escalated it as far as I can in Microsoft Australia, who have now washed their hands of the issue as being too hard.


Windows XP Problem Scenario
---------------------------
2 Windows XP Professional machines networked together.

Both are connected up to the same network place of \\PC1\Test

In \\PC1\Test there are 3 sub directories \\PC1\Test\A & \\PC1\Test\B & \\PC1\Test\B\B1.

In \\PC1\Test\B there are say 1000 files.

PC1 has Windows Explorer open and looking at \\PC1\Test\B

PC2 has Windows Explorer open and looking at \\PC1\Test\A

PC1 moves files from \\PC1\Test\B to \\PC1\Test\B\B1, while PC2 monitors \\PC1\Test\A

At the conclusion of the move PC1's Windows Explorer will refresh and the cursor will go to the hour glass for a fraction of a second.

I have tested this on multiple DELL Desktops, multiple DELL Laptops, Toshiba Laptops, HP Desktops and Clones. I have tested this with Windows XP from Select and Full Package domestic along with Service Pack 1. I have tested this on SOE machines and non-SOE machines.

The implications of this are that with 100's of users connected to a standard share at a site this refreshes constantly.


Ways to reduce the effect
-------------------------
1. Reduce the users on the Network Place
2. Minimise the activity in the Network Place
3. Map Network Places to further down the directory structure
4. To eliminate the problem map a network drive to the Network Place, or a subdirectory within the Network Place



Yours

Craig Keegan
NTSecurity Pty Ltd
0412 141719
Craig.Keegan@Consultant.com

[Penguin2212]

That happens to me, in this case the 'scratch' drive at my university, which is a public network folder where anything can be posted. Lots of times, people post large video files in the folder, and if I view the 'scratch' drive then close it, the computer will slow down to a grinding halt, because it keeps communicating with the scratch drive's host computer. I notice that the link lights are going like crazy, and that Explorer is eating up hordes memory. I tried lowering Explorer's priority class, but that doesn' help. Any other suggestions, because mapping it as a drive doesn't help, and I certianly can't reduce the number of users, or anything else.

[Disk_Contented]

Could it be because XP allways checks for scheduled tasks on other computers before file operations.

[sbivacca]

We have the same refresh symptoms, but I don't think it is caused by file moves or other changes.

It appears to be caused by the presence of a desktop.ini file in one of the folders at the top-level of a network share, along with a folder.htt file in a "folder settings" subfolder under the folder that has the desktop.ini file. For example, on share "X:" if there were:
X:\someFolder\desktop.ini
X:\someFolder\Folder Settings\folder.htt
then when a user views the contents of the top level directory (X:\), the periodic refreshing would commence and it doesn't stop even if the user is no longer viewing that directory. It only stops when the user un-maps the share (or logs out and back in).

Either one of these files by themselves doesn't cause the problem. Together, these files are used to customize the appearance of the folder in Windows Explorer, and it doesn't matter if the user is using classic or web views. One would expect the user's system to read these customization files once upon initially viewing the directory. Apparently in XP at least this causes a periodic re-reading of the customization info. It even causes the desktop.ini file to appear to be opened by the user (as shown under "Open Files" in Computer Management on the system hosting the share), so if they try to disconnect from the share they'll get a warning that they have open files there even if they never opened any files. Remove or rename either of those two files and the symptoms go away.

I don't know if this is the problem that you are having, but it's worth looking for these files.