Explorer keeps refreshing while renaming files

Question

I am editing a batch of product photographs to add in the unique product code for each item. While I am typing to rename the file, the whole text field is highlighted because explorer refreshed itself. I am assuming that explorer is refreshing the page after each file has been modified.

The problem is that there is a 2-3 second delay between renaming the file and explorer refreshing itself, which interrupts me while typing the next filename (by highlighting the entire text box, overwriting what I have typed). I have hundreds of images to edit, so obviously this is impractical as I cannot sit and wait 3 seconds between every file, how do I disable this feature in windows 7?

I used to be able to fix this by de-selecting 'auto-arrange' but now I cannot find it. Where are the settings to change the behavior of these two things (auto-refresh and auto-arrange)? Thank you in advance for your time.

Answer 1

SOLUTION for Google Drive Users is: Switch off the sync status icons in google drive config.

I had the same problem. Same in Win 8.1 and Win 10. In my case the re-highlighting is caused by explorer-refresh beeing invoked by google drive (GD) while you are editing a filename. Same happens if any other sync-software does this. The problem has is mentioned in other posts since about 2010.

Example:

[CTRL] + [C], [CTRL] + [V], [F2], type new filename, [Enter] => "my new filename.docx"

Auto-Refreshing makes it:

[CTRL] + [C], [CTRL] + [V], [F2], type new filen[AUTO-REFRESH, RE-HIGHLIGHT]ame, [Enter] => "ame.docx"

In detail:

As soon as you paste, GD starts uploading. You hit F2 to edit and start typing the new name. GD is done with uploading and initiates Windows File Explorer to refresh. This refresh invokes Explorer to fully highlight the whole filename (in my case without extension). So you are trying to type "my new document" and finally get "ent.doc" .. almost awsome .. almost ..

So i think there is no ideal solution yet. Explorer shouldn't reset the highlighting when beeing refreshed. Maybe MS cares some day ..

Answer 2

Try setting Explore to sort by anything other than file name.  That way when you rename a file, it doesn't try to arrange it by the new alphabetical name, and thus shouldn't cause any refresh.

If that fails though, the next best thing I can think of is to put all your renames into a Notepad file, one per line, and then run it as a one-click batch rename.

The format for your text file would be:

rename oldname.jpg newname.jpg

Just put one per line and save it as a batch file.

Answer 3

I had to sort the images by 'Date Created' (date/date accessed obviously didn't work because the date changed after ever rename) so that explorer would stop auto-refreshing. Thanks for the help though.

Answer 4

The real problem here is the amount of time it's taking for Explorer to refresh.  On a well maintained computer a folder refresh should happen almost instantly, literally in the time it takes for the blink of an eye.  A three second refresh time is ridiculously slow.  Try working through the steps in the following article and see if you can speed up that machine so it isn't so ridiculously slow. 

http://www.howtogeek.com/107280/the-best-tips-for-speeding-up-your-windows-pc/

Another option is to see if you can get your hands on a Linux Machine with the Dolphin file manager installed.  Dolphin includes a custom formatted batch renaming feature that can rename a few thousand files in under a minute.