I've been messing with this all night, and finally got it working. The SHChangeNotifyRegister() function allows your GUI window to receive any of the notifications available from the SHChangeNotify() function - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762118(VS.85).aspx In my example, I get notified of all file and folder deletes for the folder C:\test. The folder must exist before calling the function. Set the fRecursive parameter of the shnotifystruct to 1 to be notified of changes recurs