P: No image preview on Open dialog box on Windows

here is another related issue (dont think mentioned in this thread).

If I am in Windows Explorer looking for a file (and seeing only these pesky icons), then I right-click to open it and Photoshop is no longer an optional choice, so I click 'Choose default program' and - here's the point - no matter what I do I cannot set Photoshop as the default programme (sorry UK spelling!) to open my file ... however, I CAN set Illustrator as the default programme to open my file... for a jpg/bmp/tiff..?!

an explanation of such 'unholy anomaly' that was never the case with CS5 would be most helpful!

OK, let me clear something up so it will eliminate those posts that are muddying up the thread. We are talking about the PREVIEW PANE in Photoshop when viewing files in LIST VIEW. If anyone is perfectly content with just having the THUMBNAILS display a quick preview of what the file looks like, there have been a few recommendations for codecs you can install....

Personally, I installed SageThumbs, which is free, just to have something to use for doing a quickview on thumbnail images. It works just fine and has plenty of options to tweak for personal preference. It shows previews in the thumbnail image for PSD, EPS, TIFF, AI, and many other file types. If that's all you need and prefer to browse your files by medium to large size thumbnails, than more power to you, and a codec just like that should more than solve your problem. I've attached an image just to show you basically what your open dialog box would look like in Photoshop in the Large icons view.

The problem is, most of us are NOT satisfied with that and don't want to browse large obnoxious thumbnails. It's slow and inefficient.

Well ultimately, there's no point in debating what is clearly a matter of opinion. I just, sincerely, hope that the product managers at Adobe monitor this forum as well as the many others out there (I've just watched 4 Youtube videos about this very topic) and take steps to work with Microsoft and/or whomever else to fix this. Honestly, it's broken. Whether you can openly agree or not, you can't help acknowledge that having to know the single filename you want out of hundreds of files in a given folder is not an equitable way to spend your time.

In the meantime, the codec I mentioned in a previous post at least lets me see a thumbnail in the file pane.

No, it is not generally agreed -- Bridge is normally fairly fast and efficient.

But this issue has nothing to do with Bridge. All it has to do with is the OS vendors tightening down on security issues and customization of their dialogs.

Chris, I think it's probably because people think that Adobe intentionally removed it for the sake of forcing people into using Adobe Bridge as a file manager/opening tool. I don't know a whole lot of designers that use Bridge at all in their daily workflow and I wouldn't be surprised if we see it omitted from the Adobe suites soon. The people that are bringing Bridge up are probably assuming that by pushing users towards using Bridge, it will somehow save the program before it is completely nixed for lack of support by the community. I, for one, probably wouldn't care all that much if it got removed. I probably use it once every month or two for very specific reasons....which I could live without.

So just to recap to answer your question: In short, their thinking is that you are trying to save Bridge from going extinct by forcing users to incorporate it into their everyday work. Whether or not that is true, I don't know. The fact is, as an employee, you guys are told to tell us certain things. So you have to understand that we, as consumers, have to decide if what you're telling us is A) The truth, and you guys are doing all you can to satisfy your customers, or B) answers that were decided on beforehand that reps are supposed to tell customers to make them believe it's not Adobe's fault, when in actuality it was a decision regarding the coding that somewhere down the line saves Adobe money. Like I said, I don't which scenario is correct here.

All I do know is that I still have a pretty hard time believing that Microsoft and Apple BOTH decided to tell Adobe to quit tweaking the Open dialog box. And if Adobe didn't, then what?.... they would stop allowing Adobe to be installed on their systems? I'm sure if that was the case, Linux would be more than happy to bend over backwards getting Adobe to run on their system. And look what it did for Apple when it became the go-to computer for design/video work. Either way, I really can't see MS and Apple telling Adobe to "eff off" because you left a stinkin preview pane in Photoshop.

Chris, I think the reason Bridge keeps getting brought up is because there seems to be an effort on the part of Adobe to "encourage" users to make use of it. Failing a thumbnail preview (or some other fix) in the Open dialog, Bridge is the only way to actually SEE what file you're opening. It is generally agreed by the user community that Bridge is slow and cumbersome - especially when you simply want to see a preview of a single file, rather than having an entire pane built on the fly. Given that the ability or lack there of, so view a preview was the genesis of the thread, it keeps getting brought up...

Again, Photoshop had time to respond to the new OS restrictions, and Illustrator was busy with other things and did not get around to making those changes.

The OS API for the codecs is buggy and causes problems. We'd like to see that fixed, or for the OS to provide codec support directly.

We tried supplying a codec, and ran into the OS bugs around the APIs and had to drop support because of the OS bugs (when it interferes with work, it's not worth the hassle).

Why do you keep bringing up Bridge? What does that have to do with OS restrictions?

I may have unintentionally created confusion around this. Since the thumbnail preview in CS6 is erroneously (and counter intuitively) removed, I was thinking perhaps having a Windows codec that provided a thumbnail view in the file pane (large thumbnail view in Explorer) would at least give users the ability to see what file they are opening.

This was NOT meant to be confused with Adobe getting their collective act together and fixing Photoshop CS6 which, IMO, is clearly broken because of the thumbnail preview omission.