Mistyping filenames in Explorer when navigating - how to reset

I typically maneuver through Windows Explorer by typing the first couple of characters in the file/folder I want. Sometimes I hit the wrong key, and I then want to reset the search buffer (for lack of a better word) so that I can start typing it again.

Back when using Windows XP, this was super simple, hitting any arrow key reset the search, and I could start typing again. But in Windows 7, it rather dings every time I hit a key after mistyping, and arrow keys don't make any difference, it still retains whatever error I typed. As far as I can see, the only way to reset is to wait for a couple of seconds, which is quite annoying, particularly when I don't wait quite long enough and hitting the key makes it retain it even longer.

Can someone tell me any way to reset this? Perhaps there is a setting for how long it should wait before automatically resetting, or some key I can hit to start over immediately?

That will step up one folder (to the parent), which is not what I want.

You do not appear to understand what I am trying to achieve. There is no caret. There is no text field. There is no visible text which I'm trying to edit.

I am traversing my file system in Windows Explorer using the keyboard. When typing the first few characters in a file/folder name, Windows Explorer will select the first file that starts with those characters. While doing so, it buffers the previous characters which I have typed, so that you can, for instance, go to Program Files by typing "PRO", rather than it going first to PerfLogs on the P, then skip to Recovery on the R and bounce back to Office on the O. This buffer is a good thing, except when you mistype any of those first few characters - in which case it retains the wrong characters in the buffer and you cannot go anywhere without waiting for the buffer to clear itself.

My issue is that the buffer takes annoyingly long to clear itself.

In the meantime I took the time to try pretty much all the keys. As far as I can tell, Escape clears the buffer, so I'll be using that.

In my search for the answer however, I found another unanswered post looking for some hidden setting on the timeout of the buffer. So if anyone knows of such a thing, it would still be useful to post about it so others can find it.

I have been watching this thread. I was not sure from you original post where you were typing. It is clear now that you are typing in Explorer's navigation pane or the pane to the right of that navigation pane. I do that too.

I used Process Monitor to see what files and registry info Explorer accesses when it changes from one folder to the next as the result of pressing just one letter. The files accessed were of no interest and I found more than 2500 entries for registry info (just for pressing one letter that moved the highlight/selection one folder down). I did not see a place where we can adjust the delay. But I might have missed it.

Yes, that's right, I am doing this in the file list pane (to the right of the navigation one), and I suppose it works pretty much the same way in the navigation pane.

It was a very good idea to watch the registry access, shame it didn't pan out. I suppose it could be reading that parameter (assuming there even is one) upon starting up a new Explorer window rather than for each keypress. Given that it queries the registry thousands of times for a single keypress though, I imagine the volume of queries on startup would be ridiculously high and really hard to sift through.

In hindsight, I probably should not have filtered out the hundreds of entries where Explorer looked for registry info and it was not found. That info might have lead us to a key/value/data that has to be added in order to impact this timeout. If you get really annoyed with the issue, try working thru Process Monitor's findings. If you have never used Process monitor, these two posts might get you started:

Missing start menu icons

Missing, disappearing folder thumbnails only from the Desktop