ReactOS began 2026 with another "major step" towards Windows NT 6 compatibility with updating its MSVCRT implementation from Wine for the Microsoft C Runtime DLL library. That improved support for a number of Windows applications running on this open-source OS. ReactOS is taking another step-forward now with addressing a very annoying usability issue where up until now you may need to refresh the file manager for seeing folder changes.

Up to now when creating a new folder on the desktop or other folder of ReactOS, it would not show up immediately but the user would need to refresh. Similarly, when emptying the Recycle Bin, it wouldn't change the icon to reflect it being emptied, the ReactOS developers noted on X .

Needing to refresh manually to see folder changes is obviously far from ideal and a big hindrance to daily usability of this "open-source Windows" OS. Thankfully though with this pull request merged this week to ReactOS, that is an issue of the past.

Change notifications on a folder on the desktop were failing due to mismatching PIDLs -- Pointer to an Item ID List. Now with ReactOS translating PIDLs for change notifications via the merged PR, folder change notifications are now properly handled.