JSI Tip 6526. Your Windows XP Windows Explorer pane flickers?

When you view a local or mapped network drive in Windows Explorer, the left pane tree view flickers or constantly refreshes. This could happen every few seconds or every few minutes.

Microsoft Windows Servers communicate file changes to Windows XP client that can cause extra traffic over a WAN.

NOTE: Windows 2000 clients do NOT exhibit this behavior.

NOTE: Third party rogue software on the server, like a poorly written antivirus, can cause a folder on the server to be constantly updated.

To resolve this problem on the Windows XP client:

1. Apply the 810565 critical update or apply the 330929 hotfix.

2. Turn off change notification for file and folder changes. Copy / Paste the following to a NoFlicker.reg file:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer]
"NoRemoteRecursiveEvents"=dword:00000001

3. Merge the NoFlicker.reg file with the Windows XP registry or run regedit /s NoFlicker.reg.

NOTE: This will turn of change notification that occur in a subfolder of a mapped network share. Changes at the root level will still be communicated.

NOTE: When NoRemoteRecursiveEvents is set to 1 and folders are redirected to a network share, the user interface (UI) may not update automatically. See Windows XP May Cause Extra SMB Notify Change Traffic.