Windows 7 desktop does not auto-refresh

[Noah]

My problem is whenever I perform any changes in any of the folder within Windows Explorer, I am unable to notice any changes unless and until I refresh it manually. It has been seen that if I delete any files from a folder, I am still able to see its icons, although it is inaccessible and cannot be opened, present on the same place until I manually refresh it. I looked for settings under Folder Option to auto refresh if any changes occur and also in services but didn't find anything important. Is there any way to enable such kind of feature? Please help!

[mv]

There seems to be some software conflicts causing this behavior to occur. Did you tried clean boot up to make sure if its true in your case?
1. Log in to computer with admin account, if you are not at present.
2. Click on Start button, type msconfig.exe in the search box, and press ENTER. This opens up the System Configuration Utility window. If you may be asked for the password to move further, type your password, and click Continue.
3. Under General tab, select Selective Startup, and then uncheck the Load startup items check box.
4. Under Services tab, select Hide all Microsoft services check box, and then click Disable all button.
5. Save the changes by clicking on OK button and then restart your computer.

[Aleksandra]

I think Windows has messed up somewhere and so I don't think the above clean boot option will work in your case. But you may try it, however. If that doesn't help then I would suggest you to restore your computer to the point previous to this problem occurred. You may even see if that occurs because of the startup item that has been listed recently. Disable them and see if that works.

[Elijah]

This problem seems to be Thumbnail cache memory issue. Clear it off and see if it helps.
1. Go to Start, type cleanmgr in the search box and then press Enter. Or you can even go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup.
2. Select your system partition, and select Thumbnails check box.
3. Press OK and you are done.

[Noah]

Thanks guys for your help but none of them worked at all. I tried deleting IconCache and clean boot but it didn't worked at all. I even tried other options like sfc, resetting folder view and also creating a new user account to see if it happens just to me. But noticed the same problem appears whatever I do. What else can be done in your opinion?

[mv]

If that doesn't help then I suppose you need to tweak your registries. Make sure you take the backup before performing this tweak because if anything went wrong you know you have some thing to restore it back. So open up Windows registry by typing "regedit" in the Start search box. Search for "dontrefresh" in the registries. Most probably it should be under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID{BDEADE7F-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\Instance. So, as per your situation, it should have the value of 1. Change it to "0".

[Aleksandra]

It may occur due to some problem with your Explorer. You just need to restart your Explorer. To do so, open up Windows Task Manager. Under Processes tab, select explorer.exe. Press End task button at the bottom of the window. This will clear your screen displaying a blank screen in front of you. Now press Ctrl+Alt+Delete. Now select File menu and then New Task. Type explorer.exe and press Enter. This will launch Explorer once again. See if this works.

[Everglade]

If that doesn't help then I suppose you need to tweak your registries. Make sure you take the backup before performing this tweak because if anything went wrong you know you have some thing to restore it back. So open up Windows registry by typing "regedit" in the Start search box. Search for "dontrefresh" in the registries. Most probably it should be under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID{BDEADE7F-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\Instance. So, as per your situation, it should have the value of 1. Change it to "0".

This worked perfectly for me.