Как организовать обмен данными между приложениями?

А хрен его знает. Если ты дерево строишь по реальной информации, а не ручками, то запусти таймер и каждую секунду вызывай построение дерева.
Можно также это в отдельном потоке сделать, со слипом на секунду.

Чтобы все работало так как Ты хочеш, то читаешь MSDN. Вот я сюда закинул нужный раздел. В нем как раз описывается наблюдение за изменением содержимого каталогов.


Monitoring Changes in a Directory or Directory Tree
The following example monitors the directory tree starting at C:\ for directory name changes. It also monitors the C:\WINDOWS directory for filename changes.

The example uses the FindFirstChangeNotification function to create two notification handles and the WaitForMultipleObjects function to wait on the handles. Whenever a directory is created or deleted in the tree starting at C:\ , the example updates the entire directory tree. Whenever a file is created or deleted in the C:\WINDOWS directory, the example refreshes the WINDOWS directory. The FindNextChangeNotification function restarts the change notification each time the example processes a change.

DWORD dwWaitStatus;
HANDLE dwChangeHandles[2];

// Watch the C:\WINDOWS directory for file creation and
// deletion.

dwChangeHandles[0] = FindFirstChangeNotification(
"C:\\WINDOWS", // directory to watch
FALSE, // do not watch the subtree
FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_FILE_NAME); // watch filename changes

if (dwChangeHandles[0] == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
ExitProcess(GetLastError());

// Watch the C:\ subtree for directory creation and
// deletion.

dwChangeHandles[1] = FindFirstChangeNotification(
"C:\\", // directory to watch
TRUE, // watch the subtree
FILE_NOTIFY_CHANGE_DIR_NAME); // watch dir. name changes

if (dwChangeHandles[1] == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)
ExitProcess(GetLastError());

// Change notification is set. Now wait on both notification
// handles and refresh accordingly.

while (TRUE)
{

// Wait for notification.

dwWaitStatus = WaitForMultipleObjects(2, dwChangeHandles,
FALSE, INFINITE);

switch (dwWaitStatus)
{
case WAIT_OBJECT_0:

// A file was created or deleted in C:\WINDOWS.
// Refresh this directory and restart the
// change notification. RefreshDirectory is an
// application-defined function.

RefreshDirectory("C:\\WINDOWS")
if ( FindNextChangeNotification(
dwChangeHandles[0]) == FALSE )
ExitProcess(GetLastError());
break;

case WAIT_OBJECT_0 + 1:

// A directory was created or deleted in C:\.
// Refresh the directory tree and restart the
// change notification. RefreshTree is an
// application-defined function.

RefreshTree("C:\\");
if (FindNextChangeNotification(
dwChangeHandles[1]) == FALSE)
ExitProcess(GetLastError());
break;

default:
ExitProcess(GetLastError());
}
}