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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-14T03:01:06+00:00

Here is the scenario: My client machine is connected via a router to the

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Here is the scenario:

  • My client machine is connected via a router to the server located hundreds of miles away (I think its a VPN of some sort)
  • My VB6 program is waiting for the creation of a file on the server (mapped drive)
  • My vb6 program when it sees the file, takes that file locally via its unc path and adds some text to the bottom before printing to a zebra printer locally(this is a batch of files I process one right after the next-in a loop)
  • This is taking about 30 seconds (should take less than 1 second)
  • When I connect in remotely to troubleshoot somehow I get it to print at normal speed, without the 30 second delay
  • In troubleshooting everything from AV scanning to folder permissions I am starting to suspect that when I open the mapped folder to watch the files being placed into the mapped folder my speed/delay for each file manipulation goes away.
  • The next day when the customer runs it – the delay is back
  • I am thinking of adding some code to ‘open’ that window just before the batch is started to test this, but not even sure how to code that.

So my question is this: Can opening the mapped folder in Windows Explorer somehow speed up the transfer of files by my program? This seems to be what is happening, but in my mind, it should make no difference.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Had the same problem and a techie ‘in house’ could point it to the caching of the files-system in a network (OS-level). That cache only refreshes once in every so much seconds (in my case 15 seconds). Nor ‘close’, nor ‘reset’ could force the server/PC with the file to refresh quicker (not even a .refresh in the filelistbox).

    So, when I asked over the network with ‘Dir’ if a file existed, I get an answer 15 seconds later.

    But, when I assume the file exists, I do a filecopy, and I wait for an error, surprise … I get the file immediately or I get immediately an error.

    BTW, it is not necessary to do a filecopy (for example, if it is a big file). A rename (and rename it again to the original filename) did the same for me.

    We spend a lot of time trying to resolve this but we discovered we needed to go too deep into the OS (and that differs each version), so, we opted for working with ‘hardcoded’ files, that is, we had the server make locally (that is, on the server) a textfile with the files he sees. That textfile has a hardcoded name the station knows … and then the station can instantly acces the files, without waiting for a refresh of the filesystem over the network.

    It is kind of weird, I know, but it really worked for us.

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