Software "Ghosting"

demanufactured

Hi Folks,
Strange issue here in our office that we have been trying to get our heads around.

We run a system with 150 branch sites running a piece of client software that connects back to our datacentre here.

We have approx 3-5 PC's on each site that run the software.

On a nightly basis we run a job (powershell script) on these PC's that purges old data and cleans up temp files ect.
As part of this job the client software gets closed (process is killed) before the cleanup job starts.
Some of our customers have an issue whereby they come into the office to use the PC's, there is what looks like the remains of the client software on the desktop. (process is not running)

If the user refreshes the desktop or if we connect remotely (also refreshes the desktop) it will fix it at the time.

I have tried adding this to the registry which did not resolve:
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/desktop-does-not-refresh-automatically-windows

Open Registry Editor and navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID
Here right-click and search for dontrefresh. If you find it, and if it has a value set to 1, change its value to 0. If you do not see it, create it and give it a value 0

We also installed the latest GFX drivers on the PC , and the PC was even replaced at one point with a freshly imaged one.

it doesn't appear to be an issue with our software as its not happening on all sites , only a small number, so looks like a windows issue.

Has anyone ever come across something like this before?
its a bit of a head scratcher to be honest.

demanufactured

Anyone?

ressem

This does come up with explorer.exe (which manages the desktop icons etc).

Can you call the SHChangeNotify(SHCNE_ASSOCCHANGED,SHCNF_FLUSH,0,0 ) as part of your powershell script?

MSDN link for the call is https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762118(VS.85).aspx

Remarks
Applications that register new handlers of any type must call SHChangeNotify with the SHCNE_ASSOCCHANGED flag to instruct the Shell to invalidate the icon and thumbnail cache. This will also load new icon and thumbnail handlers that have been registered. Note, however, that icon overlay handlers are not reloaded.

There's a powershell script to wrap this shell explorer refresh available at
http://powershell.com/cs/media/p/8322.aspx

Drop it into a script and add a call to it's function Refresh-Explorer at the end.

demanufactured

Got this resolved.

Have added the below as a scheduled task

RUNDLL32.EXE
USER32.DLL,UpdatePerUserSystemParameters 1, True

Cork981

demanufactured wrote: »

Got this resolved.

Have added the below as a scheduled task

RUNDLL32.EXE
USER32.DLL,UpdatePerUserSystemParameters 1, True

Thanks for coming back and posting the fix.

Many people vanish and don't provide the resolution.

demanufactured

No Problem , it took a bit of digging around and trial and error.

demanufactured

Turns out it wasn't removed.. had users reporting it again.

We decided to implement "password protect screensaver" which invokes a desktop refresh once the screen is unlocked....

Seems to have resolved it.