This is a feature request to Adobe. Please prioritise your support for displaying PDF thumbnails within Explorer on 64 bit Windows. If this work is underway, please let us know you are working on it.Based on review of this forum & others, it is my understanding that PDF Thumbnails are not appearing due to a lack of 64 bit dll that supports this feature.Note: This is different from similar but unrelated issues. If I use Adobe Reader's File Open menu, it displays thumbnails of all pdf's as desired. (but not from Explorer). So Adobe is configured correctly.I can see thumbnails from other applications in Explorer. ie: Windows Explorer 64 bit options are configured correctly.I've checked that the Windows Default Programs are mapping .PDF files to Adobe Reader.This drop in functionality is consistant on all our 64 bit client machines; including Windows 8, 7 & Windows server 2012. So I don't think a reinstall will be the issue.The Preview pane in Explorer works fine. So I'm reluctant to install a 3rd party solution which perports to solve both the Prieview & Thumbnail issues. Why is this important?We have hundreds of .PDF files on our fileserver. It is much more productive to scan the files in multiple directories & then open 2-3 relevant ones by using the Windows Explorer. We loved this feature & now miss it when we upgrade our systems to 64 bit.If we are doing something wrong & have misconfigured something please let me know. As this is a common thread all over the Net.

A

Anonymous

Question

PDF Thumbnails do not appear in 64 bit Windows Explorer - Adobe pls rectify

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
January 16, 2013
5 replies
43267 views

This is a feature request to Adobe.

Please prioritise your support for displaying PDF thumbnails within Explorer on 64 bit Windows.

If this work is underway, please let us know you are working on it.

Based on review of this forum & others, it is my understanding that PDF Thumbnails are not appearing due to a lack of 64 bit dll that supports this feature.

Note: This is different from similar but unrelated issues.

If I use Adobe Reader's File Open menu, it displays thumbnails of all pdf's as desired. (but not from Explorer). So Adobe is configured correctly.
I can see thumbnails from other applications in Explorer. ie: Windows Explorer 64 bit options are configured correctly.
I've checked that the Windows Default Programs are mapping .PDF files to Adobe Reader.
This drop in functionality is consistant on all our 64 bit client machines; including Windows 8, 7 & Windows server 2012. So I don't think a reinstall will be the issue.

The Preview pane in Explorer works fine. So I'm reluctant to install a 3rd party solution which perports to solve both the Prieview & Thumbnail issues.

Why is this important?

We have hundreds of .PDF files on our fileserver. It is much more productive to scan the files in multiple directories & then open 2-3 relevant ones by using the Windows Explorer.

We loved this feature & now miss it when we upgrade our systems to 64 bit.

If we are doing something wrong & have misconfigured something please let me know. As this is a common thread all over the Net.

This topic has been closed for replies.

AshuMittal9644438

Adobe Employee

Hi all,

This was fixed in our update released yesterday (May 10th). Make sure you are on the latest update by visiting Help > Check for updates.

Next, to enable thumbnail previews go to Preferences > General and then select Enable PDF thumbnail previews in Windows Explorer.

Thanks,

-ashu

W

WorldwideBundall

Participant

Greetings

Firstly, when I say Thumbnail Previews, I am referring to the PDF icon's ability to be substituted for an image of Page One within the PDF file.

In Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, there is no Thumbnail Preview capability anymore, however, I use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, Installed Acrobat Reader DC(Free Software), then installed FoxitReader (Free software) which gave me Thumbnail Previews and finally uninstalled Acrobat Reader DC in order to revert the file association back to the full version Acrobat while leaving the Thumbnail Preview ability intact. Then I could use Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and see thumbnail previews without having to open the files.

Give it a go, it worked for me and I am using version, Adobe Acrobat Pro DC 2015.008.20082. and Foxit Reader 7.3.4.311 (which you never need to run even once if you don't wish to)

Good luck

Michael

K

kiwi_rob_99

Participant

I too had this issue in Win 8.1 with Reader XI 11.0.10

I found a solution that works here Fixes for 64-bit Adobe Reader preview handler and thumbnails

B

bmxjumperc

Participant

I'd just like to say, I'd like to see an official fix from Adobe for the icon preview problem in Windows File Explorer also. The only fix I came accross is this user created executable install that repairs the registry. If a user can fix the problem Adobe should have no problem with that themselves the developers of the software; great!

A

Anonymous

We also have this problem with thumbnail previews not working in Windows Explorer since upgrading our network to the Windows 7 64-bit operating system.

Have extensively searched for solution but there are none, not even with third party PDF viewers that have their own thumbnail preview handler (Foxit).

Have applied the clever registry fixes generously provided by pretentiousname.com but it is not a complete solution.

Even with the registry fixes applied there is no thumbnail preview in Windows Explorer of shortcuts to PDF files.

This was not a problem in the 32 bit version of Windows 7.

I find it shocking that not only has Adobe done nothing to solve this after years of knowing about it but that the market has not produced an solution that I can buy. Buying the "Professional" version of Acrobat does not solve this problem either, nor does Bluebeam, Foxit, or the other better/cheaper PDF creation software on the market address this fundamental problem.

markerline

Inspiring

With Acrobat Pro X, I can verify that Windows 7 64-bit displays PDF's as thumbnail Icons on the desktop. Probably within other folders in Explorer as well. I can't troubleshoot with just Adobe Reader for you, sorry.

A

AkaSomeOne

Participating Frequently

With Acrobat Pro XI, I can verify that Windows 8 64-bit does not display PDFs as thumbnail icons on the desktop, unless thumbnails have been previously generated and cached by browsing the related folder in some 32-bit application beforehand.

This long standing issue has been there for what, years? without Adobe judging it worth fixing. Probably because Acrobat is not 64-bit aware. (Similarly, no fix to date for broken indexation iFilter under 64-bit Windows)

C_F_McBlob

Inspiring

Quetenouill wrote:
This long standing issue has been there for what, years? without Adobe judging it worth fixing. Probably because Acrobat is not 64-bit aware. (Similarly, no fix to date for broken indexation iFilter under 64-bit Windows)

Reader being freeware and used by many many many businesses around the world (many of whom are STILL using Windows XP or 2000 [32 bit])... and

With Adobe moving to Creative Cloud based versions of everything...

I can only assume that they will NOT give this (64 bit compatibility) a very high priority.
Additionally, to the O.P. this being a user-to-user forum, not often frequented by development personnel, the feature request will "fall on deaf ears" here because we use 32 bit reader with 64 bit OS's just like you do.

The place to submit a bug report/feature request is here, not in the forums.

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